REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


TEXAS 

TZ-j 

AND  THE 


1^ 


MASSACHUSETTS  EESOLUTIONS. 


BY  CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS. 


BOSTON: 
1844. 

EASTBURN'S  PRESS. 


TEXAS 


lA 


MASSACHUSETTS  RESOLUTIONS. 


or 


BY  CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS. 


BOSTON: 
1844. 

EASTBURN'S  PRESS. 


^ 


The  substance  of  this  Essay  has  already  been  published  in  the  col- 
umns of  the  Boston  Courier,  in  nine  separate  newspapers.  It  is  now 
eligJitly  enlarged  and  put  in  a  continuous  form,  in  order  that  the  views 
therein  taken  of  two  much  disputed  questions  of  great  national  interest 
at  this  time,  as  well  as  of  the  policy  to  be  adopted  by  the  Free  States  in 
respect  to  them,  may  be  submitted  entire  to  the  impartial  judgment  of 
a  free  people. 


^      Of  TH€ 

UNJVERSITY 

Of 


REMARKS. 


The  'People  of  the  United  States  have  been  lately  taken 
somewhat  by  surprise  upon  the  announcement  that  a  Treaty 
was  actually  on  foot  between  the  American  Government  and 
Texas  by  which  the  annexation  of  the  latter  to  the  Union, 
the  favorite  measure  of  a  great  party  in  the  country  is  at  last 
to  be  effected.  They  had  scarcely  supposed  that  this  ques- 
tion so  lately  thought  to  be  put  at  rest  was  about  to  rise  be- 
fore them  again  so  soon  and  in  so  novel  a  manner.  The 
newspapers,  the  usual  organs  by  which  events  are  an- 
nounced, for  reasons  which  may  readily  be  understood,  long 
abstained  very  carefully  from  sounding  any  alarm,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  measure  was  almost  upon  us  that  they  apprised 
us  even  of  its  existence.  Even  since  the  fact  has  become 
notorious  beyond  the  possibility  of  contradiction,  it  cannot  be 
said  that  they  treat  the  subject  in  the  full  and  open  and  un- 
disguised manner  which  its  paramount  importance  to  the 
country  demands.  The  great  mass  of  thinking  people  are 
not  led  fully  to  comprehend  what  it  Is  that  makes  this  point 
one  of  such  deep  interest  to  carry  in  some  quarters  of  the 
Union,  and  in  others  to  resist,  nor  are  they  prepared  by  the 
momentary  and  evanescent  censure  which  they  find  now  and 
then  passed  upon  it  to  devise  a  plan  of  action  which  shall 
stop  the  whole  movement,  while  there  is  time. 

And  when  we  say  movement,  we  do  not  mean  by  this 
simply  the  effort  of  John  Tyler  to  finish  the  scheme  by  what 
the  French  would  call  a  "coup  de  main."  That  is  merely 
the  end  of  what  has  been  in  the  process  of  accomplishment 
for  years  back.  Mr.  Holmes  of  South-Carolina  said  in  his 
place  in  Congress,  that  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  "the 
settled  policy  of  the  government."  His  remark  was  full  of 
meaning  ;  but  how  ^ew  are  there  in  the  Free  States,  who  have 
been  led  to  give  it  a  moment's  consideration  ?  His  remark 
may  go  somewhat  to  illustrate  the  motives  of  the  appointment 
of  Mr.  John  C.  Calhoun  to  the  Department  of  State,  and 
yet  the  newspapers  of  the  Free  States  of  all  parties  seem  to 
hail  that  appointment,  as  if  it  was  the  announcement  of  a  sa- 
viour to  the  nation.     If  Mr.  Calhoun  is  likely  to  save  the 


211881 


■    4 

State  by  any  policy  which  he  introduces  into  the  administra- 
tion, then  did  George  Washington  greatly  misconceive  what 
that  policy  ought  to  be,  in  ihe  legacy  which  he  left  to  his 
countrymen. 

The  annexation  of  Texas  has  been  the  settled  policy  of 
the  government  for  many  years  past.  But  it  has  been  only 
one  of  a  series  of  measures  which  have  constituted  that  pol- 
icy. Perhaps  it  was  the  one  most  difficult  to  accomplish, 
and  therefore  the  longer  delayed,  that  all  the  initiatory 
steps  might  be  more  firmly  taken.  There  have  been  those 
in  the  Free  States,  who  have  watched  the  progress  made 
with  unsleeping  vigilance,  and  who  have  more  than  once  suc- 
ceeded in  defeating  the  scheme  for  the  moment,  but  it  never 
has  been  laid  aside.  It  never  will  be  laid  aside  until  it  is  ac- 
complished. Time  will  be  given  to  remove  from  the  scene 
the  most  powerful  opponents,  or  to  soften  the  roughest  obsta- 
cles. But  the  thing  will  be  done,  peaceably  if  possible, 
forcibly  if  necessary.  Let  no  man  in  the  Free  States  hug 
the  delusion  that  it  is  stopped,  because  two  thirds  of  the  Sen- 
ators cannot  now  be  found  to  ratify  Mr.  Tyler's  treaty. 
There  are  many  ways  in  America  to  arrive  at  the  same  re- 
sult. If  one  fails,  another  will  be  tried.  Money,  promises, 
bribes,  threats,  will  be  used,  bargains  will  be  made,  and  the 
end  of  it  will  be,  that  unless  they  interfere  with  a  voice  of 
thunder  to  prevent  it  the  people  of  the  Free  States  will  be 
sold,  and  Texas  will  be  bought  for  the  bauble  of  the  Presi- 
dency. 

Even  now  there  is  living  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  river 
an  individual,  the  chief  merit  of  w^hose  political  life  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  he,  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
refused  to  negotiate  a  treaty  like  that  which  John  Tyler 
now  proposes.  The  recollection  of  that  act,  at  this  time, 
weighs  heavily  against  him  and  his  hopes  of  again  reach- 
ing the  station  which  he  lost.  He  has,  through  his  friends, 
bargained  away  much  that  the  Free  States  deem  valuable, 
the  right  of  petition,  the  protection  of  home  industry,  the 
freedom  of  speech,  and,  indeed,  almost  every  other  se- 
curity to  Hberty,  for  the  sake  of  assuring  himself  of  the  sup- 
port of  the  Southern  States.  They  are  not  yet  satisfied. 
They  require  the  surrender  of  all  opposition  to  Texas,  and  it 
is  to  be  feared  that  this  also  will  be  sacrificed  to  them.  For 
instead  of  meeting  half  way  the  generous  feelings  of  four  fifths 
of  the  people  of  the  Free  States,  indignant  at  this  secret 
manoeuvre  of  John  Tyler's,  the  Legislatures  of  at  least  three 
States  friendly  to  Mr.  Van  Buren,  have  cooly  determined  in 
silence  to  await  the  issue.     We  were  not  disappointed  in  this 


result,  for  we  know  the  calculating  policy  of  that  gentleman. 
The  principles  of  liberty  are  never  safe  in  the  hands  of  men 
who  make  a  trade  of  public  affairs.  Mr.  Van  Buren  must 
be  judged  by  his  preceding  course,  taken  as  a  whole — and 
from  that  let  no  man  delude  himself  with  the  belief  that  he  is 
fixed  to  any  thing  but  his  own  interest.  If  the  citizens  of  the 
Free  States  are  to  have  any  hope  of  maintaining  to  them- 
selves and  their  children  the  blessings  of  liberty,  they  must 
rely  upon  themselves.  For  their  voice  alone  will  form  the 
potential  rule  by  which  the  conduct  of  such  men  as  Mr.  Van 
Buren  will  be  guided.  And  with  regret  it  must  be  confessed 
that  of  such  men,  do,  for  the  most  part,  our  legislative  bodies 
consist. 

In  order  to  a  full  comprehension  of  the  merits  of  this  ques- 
tion, it  is  necessary  to  go  a  great  deal  deaper  than  Mr. 
Tyler's  treaty  with  Texas.  That  is  but  an  incident — an 
important  one,  it  may  be — but  still  only  one  of  many,  which 
spring  from  the  same  cause.  What  that  cause  is,  few  of  the 
leading  politicians  of  the  present  day  dare  to  tell  if  they 
know.  The  exposure  of  it  to  the  light  is  not  a  very  safe 
process  to  any  one  ambitious  of  a  share  of  power,  to  get 
which  it  is  necessary  to  gain  the  assent  of  Senators  from  the 
Southern  States.  The  Massachusetts  resolutions  ventured  to 
point  to  that  cause  in  a  manner  that  could  not  be  misunderstood. 
Hence  the  extraordinary  way  in  which  they  have  been  re- 
ceived throughout  the  chain  of  the  slave  States,  and  in  both 
branches  of  the  federal  legislature.  Massachusetts  struck 
directly  at  the  root  of  the  evil.  She  showed  from  whence 
came  the  policy  which  has  already  put  fetters  on  the  Free 
States,  the  galling  nature  of  which  they  will  only  begin  to 
feel  when  the  annexation  of  Texas  shall  have  brought  its  train 
of  evils  along  with  it,  and  the  consequence  has  been  a  gen- 
eral burst  of  indignation  from  the  parties  interested  in  main- 
taining the  delusion.  It  must  be  confessed  that  Massa- 
chusetts, in  making  the  exposition  which  she  did  of  the 
power  wielded  by  the  representation  of  property  in  man, 
conceded  by  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  over  the 
interests  of  the  Union,  went  a  step  beyond  public  opinion, 
even  in  the  Free  States,  and  she  has  not  yet  been  properly 
sustained  in  any  quarter,  but,  on  the  whole,  this  is  not  to  be 
regretted.  There  is  time  enough.  Events  will  show  whether 
she  is  right  or  wrong.  If  the  duty  of  sustaining  the  great 
principles  of  human  progress  against  attack,  is  to  devolve 
upon  any  one,  who  so  fit  to  lead  as  the  people  of  Massa- 
chusetts ? 

Let  no  one,  however,  be  so  simple  as  to  imagine  that  the 


question  thus  opened  can  end  here.  Mr.  Dromgoole  of  Vir- 
ginia may  flatter  himself  that  his  resolution,  forced  through 
the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington  at  the  expense 
of  every  privilege  which  makes  a  deliberative  assembly  valu- 
able to  the  people,  will  set  it  at  rest  for  the  present.  But  his 
action,  and  that  of  his  servile  majority,  will  only  tend  to  sup- 
ply another  illustration  of  the  evil  which  Massachusetts  point- 
ed out.  That  cannot  be  a  good  cause  which  stands  in  need 
of  such  aid  to  support  it.  That  must  be  a  tyrannical  system 
which  needs  the  protection  of  silent  and  hurried  measures  to 
prevent  it  from  falling.  If  the  eyes  of  this  people  are  ulti- 
mately to  be  opened,  no  better  means  can  be  devised  for  the 
purpose  than  such  as  are  now  often  and  unblushingly  resorted 
to  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  them  blind. 

It  is  a  remark  made  by  Mr.  Stiles,  a  representative  of 
Georgia,  in  a  late  speech  of  his,  which  has  been  circulated 
far  and  wide,  that  "slavery  and  the  constitution  have^owr- 
ished  together  ;  their  existence  is  the  same  and  inseparable." 
Now  if  it  were  possible  to  destroy  in  the  minds  of  respecta- 
ble citizens  all  respect  for  that  instrument,  no  more  effectual 
mode  could  be  devised  than  to  admit  the  truth  of  such  a  pro- 
position. For  what  does  it  imply  .''  Nothing  more  nor  less 
than  that  the  frame  of  government  which  all  lovers  of  freedom 
had  fondly  hoped  would  prove  the  greatest  protection  to  hu- 
man liberty  ever  known,  had  actually  proved  the  hot-bed  for 
the  forcing  into  rank  luxuriance  a  system  of  tyrannical  despo- 
tism by  one  class  over  another  and  larger  class  of  their  fellow 
beings.  Mr.  Stiles  seems  to  speak  as  if  it  were  conceded 
on  all  hands  that  the  intention  of  the  instrument  was  to  guar- 
anty the  perpetuation  of  slavery.  Yet  to  admit  this,  would  be 
equivalent  to  charging  its  framers  with  deliberate  falsehood  ; 
for  they,  in  their  preamble,  expressly  declare  the  object  of 
the  people  to  be  ''to  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  them- 
selves and  their  posterity,"  as  well  as  "  to  establish  justice," 
to  ensure  domestic  tranquillity,  to  provide  for  the  common 
defence  and  promote  the  general  welfare."  Is  it  then  true 
or  not  true,  what  Mr.  Stiles  says  of  the  constitution  ;  and  if 
true,  how  comes  it  to  be  true  in  the  face  of  so  solemn  a  pre- 
amble, which  so  directly  contradicts  him  ?  These  are  seri- 
ous questions,  and  we  propose  to  try  to  answer  them  with 
equal  seriousness. 

The  framers  of  the  constitution  meant  what  they  said  in 
the  preamble.  They  were  honest  and  honorable  men.  They 
well  knew  the  character  of  the  task  which  they  had  undertaken. 
They  felt  that  the  hopes  of  the  people,  ay,  and  of  the  friends 
of  liberty  all  over  the  civilized  world,  rested  upon  the  sue- 


cess  of  their  efforts.  And  they  labored  to  erect  a  system  of 
government  which  should  answer  the  public  expectation. 
They  strove  to  incorporate  into  it  the  safeguards  of  every 
known  principle  of  liberty,  and  what  they  did  not  formally 
recognise,  the  people,  by  amendments,  insisted  upon  ex- 
pressly securing.  Thus  it  was  that  the  writ  of  habeas  cor- 
pus was  reserved,  except  in  cases  of  extreme  public  danger, 
bills  of  attainder  and  ex  post  facto  laws  were  prohibited,  trial 
by  jury  was  secured,  convictions  for  treason  should  be  bad 
only  upon  the  concurrent  testimony  of  two  witnesses  to  a  sin- 
gle overt  act,  no  corruption  of  blood  should  be  made  a  pun- 
ishment of  the  offence,  and  republican  forms  of  government 
were  guaranteed  to  the  several  States.  These  were  provisions 
made  to  guard  against  invasions  of  personal  liberty,  of  which 
history  had  furnished  examples  under  arbitrary  governments 
on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  But  the  people  of  the  States, 
not  content  with  all  this,  insisted  upon  articles  of  amendment 
which  expressly  guard  against  an  establishment  of  religion, 
against  the  prohibition  of  the  free  exercise  of  speech  by  Con- 
gress, the  abridgement  of  the  freedom  of  speech  or  of  the 
press,  and  the  infringement  of  the  right  of  the  people  to  as- 
semble and  to  petition  for  a  redress  of  grievances.  So  with 
their  right  to  bear  arms,  and  to  be  secure  in  their  persons, 
houses,  papers  and  effects,  against  unreasonable  searches  and 
seizures,  and  also  with  their  right  to  an  impartial  trial.  All 
this,  and  more  that  might  be  enumerated,  has  but  one  end,  and 
that  is — "  the  securing  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  the  people 
and  their  posterity" — the  very  end  mentioned  in  the  pream- 
ble. The  care  that  was  taken  to  define  all  these  points  suffi- 
ciently proves  the  sincerity  of  the  persons  engaged  in  making 
the  form  of  government.  They  thought  they  were  creating 
a  repubhc, — or,  as  it  is  now  more  common  though  less  proper 
to  style  it,  a  democracy.  They  recommended  it,  because  it 
appeared  to  carry  out  the  principles  of  the  revolutionary 
struggle.  It  gave  a  practical  sanction  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  The  people  thought  so  too. 
They  ratified  it  and  adopted  it,  and  boasted  of  enjoying  the 
freest  government  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

And  yet  Mr.  Stiles  tells  us  that  "  slavery  and  the  constitu- 
tion have  flourished  together — their  existence  is  the  same  and 
inseparable."  The  first  part  of  the  sentence,  at  least,  is  true. 
Slavery  has  flourished  under  the  constitution.  Not  because  it 
was  the  design  of  the  constitution  to  make  it  flourish.  No  ! 
we  abhor  the  idea  as  a  slander  upon  our  forefathers.  It  was 
because  the  framers  of  the  constitution  whished  to  deal  mildly 
with  an  existing  evil.     They  trusted  to  the  healing  influences 


> 


8 

of  the  system  which  they  were  about  to  estabhsh,  gradually  to 
remove  the  sore.  They  made  a  mistake.  That  sore  has 
spread,  and  proves  a  corroding  ulcer.  For  the  sake  of  gain- 
ing the  security  to  freedom  in  all  the  other  provisions  which 
have  been  specified,  they  unwillingly  assented  to  one  aristo- 
cratic condition,  which  gave  to  a  small  number  of  whites,  in 
the  slave  States,  a  disproportionate  share  of  political  power, 
on  account  of  their  property  in  their  fellow-men.  That  sin- 
gle aristocratic  condition  has,  from  its  commencement,  work- 
ed unmixed  evil  to  the  Union.  It  now  bids  fair  to  overturn 
and  destroy  all  the  safeguards  of  the  constitution.  It  bids  fair 
to  make  that  instrument  a  mere  nose  of  wax,  with  which  to 
accomplish  the  selfish  purposes  of  the  class  whom  it  protects. 
The  policy  of  the  United  States  has  been  and  is  to  make 
slavery  flourish  under  the  constitution.  Mr.  Stiles  says  it 
has  succeeded — thus  far.  Perhaps  so.  But  it  is  as  yet  bare- 
ly established.  The  victory  has  not  been  gained  without  a 
struggle.  And  the  last  act  yet  remains  to  be  done — the  an- 
nexation of  Texas — before  it  can  be  said  to  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  danger.  This  once  accomplished,  it  will  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  foresee  the  consequences,  as  it  respects  any  hope  of 
effective  counteraction  on  the  part  of  the  Free  States. 

"  One  of  the  least  of  these  consequences  is  war.  War  with 
Mexico,  certainly — with  Great  Britain,  probably.  Let  the 
people  reflect  upon  these  matters  well.  For  to  them  the  re- 
sult is  of  no  trifling  importance.  *B.  war  to  protect  slavery 
against  the  civilized  worlds   is   the  ultimate  point  of  degrada- 

,  tion  to  which  a  nation,   boasting  to  be  free,   is  Hkely  to  be 

\jiriven.         yj\  •  ^  ^  ^^  v 

Let  us  however  now  consider  still  more  closely  the  asser- 
tion of  Mr.  'Stiles,  and  let  us  ask  ourselves  whether  the  con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  is  what  he  leads  us  to  infer  it  is, 
only  a  stupendous  fraud  upon  mankind.  He  affirms  that  its 
object  was  to  guarantee  the  existence  of  a  state  of  domestic 
slavery  in  the  Union,  and  that  whenever  that  object  should 
be  made  to  cease,  the  constitution  finnst  cease  also.  We 
should  not  rest  upon  the  argument  of  this  individual,  if  we 
did  not  know  that  in  it  he  represents  the  sentiments  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  in  the  Southern  States,  who  really 
believe  that  slavery  is  an  inseparable  attendant  of  our  free; 
institutions.  We  may  wonder  at  the  strange  nature  of  the 
inconsistency  committed  by  men  who  profess  themselves  tol 
go  to  the  extreme  of  democracy  in  doctrine,  but  such  is  yetl 
the  fact.  Our  business  is  rather  with  what  is,  than  with  what' 
ought  to  he.  The  Legislatures  of  Virginia,  of  Alabama,  and 
of  Louisiana,  as  well  as  the  House  of  Representatives  at 


9 

Washington,  have  all,  by  their  action  upon  the  Massachu- 
setts Resolutions,  more  or  less  committed  themselves  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  same  proposition.  They  cannot  now  get 
away  from  it  if  they  would. 

Yet  in  the  face  of  all  this,  we  will  undertake  at  once,  and 
unequivocally  to  deny,  on  behalf  of  the  framers  of  the  consti- 
tution, any  such  fraudulent  intention.  The  great  body  of  the 
convention  looked  confidently  to  the  day  when  slavery  would 
be  abolished  in  all  the  States.  The  celebrated  Judge  Wil- 
son announced  it  in  the  ratifying  Convention  of  Pennsylvania 
as  one  of  the  most  valuable  consequences  to  be  expected 
from  the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  George  Washington 
looked  forward  to  it,  if  not  in  the  same  light,  at  least  as  fol- 
lowing the  voluntary  act  of  the  Southern  States  themselves. 
Thomas  Jefferson,  though  not  a  member  of  the  convention, 
yet  a  fair  representative  of  Southern  sentiment,  was  not  a 
whit  behind-hand  in  his  professions  upon  the  subject.  The 
evil  was  then  confined  within  comparatively  small  limits  ;  it 
was  not  rapidly  growing  under  the  stimulus  of  the  production 
of  an  extraordinarily  profitable  staple,  such  as  cotton  has 
since  become  and  such  as  sugar  may  yet  become.  It  was 
generally  believed  at  the  time  that  the  transplantation  of  the 
negro  to  America  was  an  artificial  process,  which  could  only 
be  kept  up  by  perpetual  importation,  and  that,  without  this, 
the  race  would  dechne  and  die  out  of  itself.  Hence  the  ori- 
gin of  the  effort  to  prevent  the  prohibition  of  the  slave  trade, 
resulting  in  the  adoption  of  the  first  clause  of  the  ninth  section 
of  the  first  article  of  the  constitution,  which  put  that  trade 
beyond  the  control  of  Congress  for  twenty  years,  or  until 
180S.  This  measure,  if  it  meant  any  thing  at  all,  was  a  meas- 
ure of  precaution  against  the  supposed  tendency  of  the  con- 
stitution, and  by  no  means  implies  the  opinion  that  slavery 
would  flourish  under  its  protection — an  opinion  which  Mr. 
Stiles  maintains  to  have  been  the  prevailing  one,  and  which 
he,  with  a  greater  appearance  of  justice,  assumes  to  be  the 
correct  one. 

But  how  has  it  come  to  be  a  fact,  if  it  be  admitted  to  be 
true  ?  Is  it  not  because  the  constitution  gave  to  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  men,  owners  of  slaves, — a  number  which 
certainly  has  not  doubled  since, — a  most  disproportionate 
share  of  political  power  over  the  afl^airs  of  the  Union  ?  Itv  >^ 
granted  to  them  an  aristocratic  distinction  of  property  which  7 
forever  marked  them  a  favored  and  separate  class,  acting  to- 
gether for  a  common  object,  the  maintenance  at  every  hazard 
of  their  special  privilege.  The  consequence  has  been  that 
the  power  thus  concentrated  in  few  hands  has  met  with  no 


10 

yj  corresponding  combination  in  other  quarters  of  the  Union  to 
resist  il,  and  that  it  has  overborne   all   opposition.     The  first 
struggle,  which  could  hardly  be  denominated  one,  took  place 
lyipon  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  to  the   United   States — an 
Acquisition  obtained   at  the   sacrifice   of  every  constitutional 
/principle  that  had  ever  been  maintained  in  the  southern  coun- 
I  try.      This  enlarged   the  territory   over  which  the  exclusive 
/privilege  could  be  extended,  and  multiplied  the  number  of  its 
I  representatives  in  the  Senate  of  the  Union.      The  next  strug- 
gle took  place  in  1819,  at  the  time   of  the  admission  of  Mis- 
fsouri,  when  a  serious  attempt  was   made  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
Vjfuture  increase  of  that  number,   by  attaching  a  condition  that 
jjthe  right  of  property  in  man  should  not  be  recognized  in  the 
new  State.     The  champions  of  the   exclusive  privilege  were 
here  again  victorious,  and  they  have  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  that 
victory    down   to    this    time.      But    the   natural   progress   of 
events,  which  increases  the  citizens  of  the  free  States  and 
territories  much  faster   than   the   slave   owners   can  multiply 
slaves,  has  again  brought  their  power   into  danger — and  now 
the  third  struggle  is   about  to   take   place,  which  will  open  a 
new  territory,  of  indefinite   extent,    already   occupied   by   a 
[sympathizing   population   active   in   cherishing  the   source  of 
their   political   power,    and   originally   transplanted   from  the 
United  States  to  this  spot  it  occupies,  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  about  this  very  result. 

One  of  the  most  visible  modes  by  which  this  small  but 
powerful  combination  has  exercised  a  great  degree  of  influ- 
ence, has  been  through  the  election  to  the  Presidency.  Out 
of  the  now  considerable  period  since  the  adoption  of  the  con- 
stitution, there  may  be  said  to  have  been  but  one  single  term 
of  four  years  in  which  this  combination  has  not  preponderated 
in  the  government — and  the  history  of  that  term  is  the  one 
which  it  has  most  zealously  endeavored  to  decry.  We  mean 
the  presidency  of  the  elder  Adams.  Out  of  fifty-six  years, 
the  combination  has  obtained  a  Chief  Magistrate  from  a  slave- 
holding  section  of  the  country  forty-four  years,  and  it  held 
almost  unlimited  sway  during  four  of  the  remaining  twelve. 
The  consequence  may  very  easily  be  guessed.  The  gen- 
eral policy  of  the  country  has  been  that  of  protection  to 
the  interests  of  slavery.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  words  of 
Mr.  Stiles  true,  and  not  any  supposed  intent  of  the  framers 
of  the  constitution.  Slavery  has  flourished  because  those 
possessing  the  aristocratic  distinction  of  property  conceded  in 
it  have  always  held  the  balance  of  power,  and  they  have  al- 
ways used  it  with  a  single  eye  to  the  maintenance  of  their  ex- 
clusive privileges.     It  is,  then,  not  without  reason  that  Mr. 


11 

Holmes  has  pronounced  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  have  been 
the  settled  policy  of  the  government.  It  has  been  so  during 
the  last  twenty  years,  but  there  has  been  a  difference  in  the 
nature  of  that  policy  at  different  periods,  which  those  who 
now  advocate  it  very  sedulously  conceal  from  the  public  view. 
In  order  that  we  may  arrive  at  a  true  judgement  of  the 
facts,  let  us  look  at  them  a  little  more  closely. 

The  treaty  with  France,  hy  which  Louisiana  was  ceded  to 
the  United  States,  left  the  Western  boundary  of  that  territo- 
ry very  uncertain.  When  the  question  came  up  for  settle- 
ment with  Spain,  which  had  the  control  at  that  time  over  the 
neighboring  country  of  Mexico,  it  became  the  duty  of  the 
representatives  of  the  two  governments  to  argue  it  in  that 
manner  which  should  be  most  for  the  interest  of  their  respec- 
tive nations.  The  Americans  claimed  the  Rio  del  Norte  as 
the  boundary,  which  would  embrace  all  the  country  now  call- 
ed Texas,  and  more  ;  whilst  the  Spaniards,  on  the  other 
hand,  insisted  upon  a  line  running  North  from  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico to  the  River  Missouri,  at  about  the  ninety-third  degree  of 
longitude  West  from  London,  w^iich  would  have  taken  off  a 
part  of  what  are  now  the  States  of  Arkansas  and  Missouri,  and 
much  of  the  Western  Territory.  As  is  usual  in  such  cases, 
an  intermediate  line  was  ultimately  agreed  upon  by  the  treaty 
of  1819,  the  third  article  of  which,  fixed  the  boundary  at  the 
River  Sabine,  up  to  the  thirty-second  degree  of  latitude, 
thence  North  to  the  degree  of  latitude  where  such  a  line 
would  strike  the  Red  River,  thence  westward  along  this  river 
to  the  one-hundredth  parallel  of  longitude  west  from  London, 
thence  north  to  the  Arkansas  River,  thence  along  this  river 
to  its  source  in  latitude  forty-two  degrees  nordi,  and  thence 
westward  along  that  parallel  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  In  the 
annual  message  of  President  Monroe  to  Congress,  of  the  7th 
December,  1819,  this  was  distinctly  announced  as  a  com- 
promise, in  the  following  words: 

"On  the  part  of  the  United   States,  this  treaty  was  evidently  acceded 

to  in  a  spirit  of  conciliation  and  concession For  territory 

ceded  by  Spain,  other  territory  of  great  value  to  which  our  claim  was  be- 
lieved to  be  well  founded,  was  ceded  by  the  United  States,  and  in  a 
quarter  more  interesting  to  her." 

Now  if  we  consider  that  the  Floridas  were  the  territory 
ceded  by  Spain,  a  territory  for  the  sake  of  gaining  which  it 
may  be  remarked  Mr.  Jefferson  himself  whose  authority  has 
been  much  relied  upon  in  this  connexion,  always  stood  ready 
to  surrender  the  claim  on  Texas,  we  think.it  will  scarcely  be 
maintained  by  any  one  who  will  cast  a  glance  upon  the  map, 
that  this  treaty  was  not,  so  far  at  least  as  territory  is  con- 


12 

cerned,  and  Southern  territory  too,  an  abundantly  advanta- 
geous one  to  the  United  States.  Yet  Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams, 
who  was  then  in  the  Department  of  State,  and  conducted 
the  negotiation  on  the  part  of  the  Union,  has  been  most  sin- 
gularly treated  in  connexion  with  it,  by  those  who  now  un- 
dertake the  management  of  the  Texas  cause.  In  the  first 
place,  they  quote  huTi  as  a  strong  authority,  when  he  claimed 
on  the  part  of  this  country,  the  farthest  western  boundary, 
which  would  have  included  Texas  in  our  territory,  and  then 
forgetting  the  compromise  in  the  treaty,  by  which  that  claim 
was  surrendered,  in  consideration  of  the  corresponding  sur- 
render by  Spain  of  the  Floridas,  as  well  as  of  its  claim  to  a 
part  of  Arkansas  and  Missouri  and  the  Western  territory, — 
they  insist  that  he  betrayed  the  interests  of  the  Union,  by 
giving  up  this  claim  on  the  territory  of  Texas.  They  seem 
to  forget  or  to  neglect  ail  notice  of  this  contract  by  which  ter- 
ritory was  acquired  in  the  place  of  what  was  quit-claimed, 
(for  the  right  of  the  United  States  to  Texas  was  never  con- 
ceded by  the  Spanish  Government,  and  therefore  it  never 
became  more  than  a  claim  on  our  part,)  and  with  a  singular 
exhibition  of  justice  and  impartiality,  they  not  only  insist 
upon  holding  all  that  we  got  by  the  bargain,  but  also  upon 
taking  back  a  part  of  the  consideration  that  we  gave  to  get  it. 
And  the  great  argument  by  which  Mr.  Walker,  who  speaks 
for  the  Texan  party,  endeavors  to  support  this  extraordinary 
pretension  is  that  Texas  having  become  by  virtue  of  the 
Louisiana  treaty  an  integral  part  of  the  United  States,  no 
part  of  it  could  be  ceded  at  all  by  the  general  government 
without  the  consent  of  its  inhabitants.  Mr.  Walker  appears 
to  overlook  the  fact  that  in  1819  when  this  treaty  was  made 
there  were  very  few  inhabitants  in  the  territory  to  consult — 
that  none  of  them  were  emigrants  from  the  United  States, 
and  that  those  who  were  there,  as  they  had  never  been 
consulted  when  the  Louisiana  treaty  was  made,  so  they  were 
as  little  consulted  when  the  claim  was  advanced  which  was 
to  bring  them  within  the  limits  of  the  Union.  Probably 
if  they  had  been,  they  would  have  adhered  to  the  Spanish 
side  of  the  question.  The  question  was  in  substance  a  ques- 
tion of  boundaries  in  a  wilderness.  The  United  States 
have  no  right  to  insist  at  all  times  that  their  claim  is  not 
simply  a  just  one  as  against  neighboring  nations,  but  that  it  is 
utterly  impossible  for  them  to  divest  themselves  of  it.  Hence 
that  every  negotiation  and  treaty  which  surrenders  such  a 
claim  is  unauthorised  and  therefore  wholly  void.  If  this  ar- 
gument is  always  to  prevail,  where  are  we  to  stop  ^  The 
boundaries  of  the  territory  of  the   Union  are  not  yet  per- 


13 

fectly  defined  in  many  quarters.  Are  we  to  assume  that  our 
rights  shall  be  acknowledged  by  other  nations,  to  the  furthest 
limit  of  what  we  can  show  any  claim  for  ?  If  we  do,  then 
will  there  never  be  any  possibility  of  settling  questions  other- 
wise than  by  war.  It  amounts  to  dictation  to  other  countries, 
to  which  they  will  never  submit — it  can  never  be  called  nego- 
tiation with  them.  The  great  body  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  are  not  so  unreasonable  as  all  this  comes  to. 
When  a  good  treaty  is  made,  which  secures  the  great  ob- 
ject of  peace,  and  a  definite  boundary,  equally  satisfactory 
to  both  the  negotiating  countries,  it  becomes  all  honest  and 
well-meaning  citizens  to  abstain  thenceforth  and  forever  from 
all  complaint  and  much  more  from  any  effort  to  annul  its  force. 

Yet  we  are  not  among  those  who  can  be  said  to  approve 
of  one  principle  which  was  contained  in  that  treaty,  as  af- 
fecting the  domestic  concerns  of  the  Union.  We  mean  the 
acquisition  of  additional  territory.  The  example  had  been 
unfortunately  set  by  the  cession  of  Louisiana,  and  a  concur- 
rence of  circumstances  appeared  to  make  the  step  almost  un- 
avoidable. But  we  fear  it  has  been,  and  will  be,  the  parent 
of  mischiefs  innumerable.  One  of  these  has  been,  what  Mr. 
Holmes  calls  the  settled  policy  of  the  Government  to  annex 
Texas.  Another  is  the  present  dispute  with  the  government 
of  Great  Britain,  about  the  terrritory  of  Oregon.  Why 
should  the  people  of  the  United  States  want  more  lands, 
when  they  do  not  know  what  to  do  with  those  they  already 
have?  Why  should  the  twenty-six  States  seek  to  open  new 
inducements  to  the  emigration  of  their  own  citizens,  when 
those  already  existing  are  so  great  as  to  make  them  uncertain 
of  their  ability  to  keep  them  at  home  ?  Still  there  would  be 
no  impulse  of  this  kind  sufficiently  strong  to  excite  a  reason- 
able share  of  alarm  for  the  pacific  policy  of  the  Union,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  restless  desire  of  the  privileged  class  to  per- 
petuate the  sources  of  its  power. 

The  treaty  with  Spain  of  1819,  signed,  sealed  and  duly 
ratified  by  the  contracting  parties,  fixed  the  Sabine  and  the 
Red  River  as  the  boundary  of  the  United  States  on  the 
south-west.  It  surrendered  all  claim,  or  shadow  of  claim, 
to  the  territory  of  Texas.  That  was  conceded  to  belong  to 
Spain,  whilst  Spain  held  the  control  of  Mexico,  and  it  fell  to 
the  share  of  Mexico  when  that  country  made  itself  independ- 
ent. Shortly  after  the  acknowledgment  of  her  independ- 
ence, an  effort  was  made  to  treat  with  her  for  the  cession  of 
Texas.  That  effort  was  made  by  Mr.  Clay,  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  Mr.  Adams.  It  is  the  beginning  of  what  Mr. 
Holmes  has  denominated  the  settled  policy  of  this  Govern- 


14 


ment,  and  inasmuch  as  the  fact  has  been  very  much  relied 
upon  by  Mr.  Walker,  and  other  friends  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  as  a  justification  of  the  extraordinary  series  of  meas- 
ures since  taken,  it  may  be  well  to  explain  precisely  to  what 
it  amounts. 

In  the  year  1S24,  or  three  years  after  Mexico  threw  off 
the  Spanish  domination,  she  adopted  a  constitution,  wherein 
it  was  provided  that  "no  person  should  thereafter  be  born  or 
introduced  as  a  slave  into  the  Mexican  nation."  At  this 
time  the  territory  of  Texas  was  comparatively  a  desert. 
There  were  but  a  [ew  settlements,  and  none  of  them  had 
shown  any  disposition  to  resist  the  policy  thus  declared.  In 
1825,  Mr.  Clay  proposed  the  cession  of  the  territory,  for 
such  a  reasonable  sum  of  money  as  to  Mexico  would  be  per- 
fectly satisfactory.  It  was  the  land  that  was  in  question,  and 
not  the  institutions  established  in  it,  for  none  had  been  then 
established.  It  was  an  open  bargain  with  a  neighbor,  which 
that  neighbor  was  perfectly  at  liberty  to  agree  to  or  to  reject 
— and  which  it  did  reject  in  such  a  manner  as  to  put  an  end 
to  the  negotiation.  There  was  no  fraud,  no  false  play,  no 
open  profession  and  secret  treachery.  We  may  disapprove 
of  the  policy  which  sought  for  an  enlargement  of  territory  in 
this  quarter,  if  we  please,  but  we  have  nothing  to  be  ashamed 
of  in  it.  We  may  blame  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Clay  for  set- 
ting a  precedent  in  this  instance,  so  likely  to  be  abused,  and 
which  in  fact  has  been  abused,  but  we  cannot  make  them 
justly  responsible  for  not  foreseeing  the  train  of  evils  which 
only  the   policy  of  the  last  fifteen  years  has  brought  to  light. 

In  short,  Texas  is  not,  and  never  was  ours.  We  had  a 
claim  upon  it,  believed  by  us  to  be  good,  which  we  sold  for 
more  than  it  was  worth.  We  have  not,  therefore,  had  a 
shadow  of  right  to  it  since,  and  this  pretence  of  getting  round 
a  solemn  treaty  for  the  sake  of  reviving  a  disputed  title,  set- 
tled, advantageously  to  us,  long  ago,  is  only  one  of  many 
movements  which  reflect  no  credit  upon  the  advocates  of  the 
annexation.  Six  years  afterwards,  it  is  true  that  the  admin- 
istration of  Mr.  Adams  offered  to  buy  the  territory  from 
Mexico,  before  it  was  seriously  encumbered  with ''the  do- 
mestic institution,"  and  before  citizens  of  the  United  States 
had  gone  into  it  for  the  purpose  of  exciting  disaffection,  but  it 
did  not  pretend  that  Mexico  was  not  fully  possessed  of  all  the 
rights  to  it  which  Spain  held  under  the  Treaty  of  1819,  up  to 
the  period  of  the  overthrow  of  her  domination.  The  offer 
was  made — it  was  declined,  and  there  was  an  end  of  the  bu- 
siness. In  making  it,  the  United  States  conceded  the  validity 
of  the  title  by  which  Mexico  held  it.     It  would  have  been 


15 

well  for  the  character  of  our  diplomacy,  if  they  had  continu- 
ed, as  at  first,  contentedly  to  abide  by  the  refusal. 
^  But  this  was  not  destined  to  be  the  case.  We  must  now 
go  into  a  very  brief  examination  of  that  which  Mr.  Holmes 
has  called  the  "  settled  policy  of  the  government,"  respect- 
ing Texas.  We  have  no  desire  to  say  any  thing  unnecessa- 
rily harsh,  either  of  active  or  retired  public  men,  but  a  part 
of  the  truth,  at  least,  must  be  told.  The  whole  has  never 
yet  been,  and  probably  never  will  be,  revealed  to  the  public. 
If  in  any  particular  we  commit  errors  from  want  of  all  the 
necessary  evidence  to  substantiate  our  statements,  we  shall  be 
glad  to  be  corrected.  The  times  demand  that  the  facts 
should  be  presented  with  accuracy  and  without  passion. 

General  Jackson  was  elected  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  March,  1829,  assumed  the  office.  Mr.  Van 
Buren  became  his  Secretary  of  State.  On  the  25th  of  Au- 
gust following,  the  latter  gentleman  wrote  to  our  minister  in 
Mexico,  that  the  President  wished  him  to  open,  without  de- 
lay, a  negotiation  for  the  purchase  of  Texas.  For  that  which 
the  preceding  administration  had  not  thought  of  offering  more 
than  one  million  of  dollars,  the  General  was  willing  to  offer 
four  millions  of  dollars,  or  even  as  much  as  five. 

It  must  be  noted  that  at  this  very  time  the  government  was 
aware  of  the  fact  that  an  expedition  had  been  fitted  out  by 
Spain  for  the  reconquest  of  Mexico,  which  appeared  for  some 
time  likely  to  be  successful.  We  refer  to  that  under  General 
Barradas.  This  was  thought  to  be  a  highly  favorable  moment 
to  press  the  offer  of  so  large  a  sum  of  money.  "  It  is"  said 
Mr.  Van  Buren  in  one  of  his  despatches  "regarded  by  us  as 
an  auspicious  one  to  secure  the  cession,  and  I  will  add,  that 
there  does  not  appear  to  be  any  reasonable  objection  on  the 
score  of  delicacy,  to  its  being  embraced." 

The  Mexican  character  is  somewhat  peculiar.  It  is  indo- 
lent, but  very  stubborn.  However  delicate  they  might  have 
considered  the  offer  at  such  a  moment,  the  money  was  no 
temptation,  and  the  Spanish  expedition  came  to  nothing. 
Mr.  Poinsett  was  obliged  to  write  home  his  conviction  "  that 
we  never  can  expect  to  extend  our  boundary  south  of  the 
Sabine,  without  quarreling  with  these  people.^^ 

Here  was  a  hint.  How  it  was  taken,  may  best  be  under- 
stood by  reading  an  extract  from  a  newspaper,  the  Arkansas 
Gazette  of  1830,  which  announced,  ''from  information  deriv- 
ed from  a  source  entitled  to  the  highest  credit,  that  no  hopes 
need  be  entertained  of  our  acquiring  Texas,  until  some  other 
party  more  friendly  to  the  United  States  shall  predominate  in 
Mexico,  and  perhaps  not  until  Texas  shall  throw  of  the  yoke 


16 

of  allegiance  to  that  government,  which  they  will  do,  no 
doubt,  as  soon  as  they  shall  have  a  reasonable  pretext  for  so 
doing." 

What  was  the  "source  entitled  to  the  highest  credit''  from 
which  issued   so  remarkable  an  oracle  ?     Who  was  it  that 
thus   succeeded  in  casting   forward   the  shadow  of  coming 
events  ?     Was  it  the  President's  correspondent  in  Arkansas, 
the  Secretary  of  State,    Mr.    Fulton  ?     Was  it  Mr  Anthony 
Butler,  who  had  been  in  the  confidence  of  the  President  in 
1 829,  and  who  succeeded  Mr.  Poinsett  in  Mexico  }  or  the 
still  more  remarkable    person  who   became  the    instrument 
through  which  conjecture  was  made  reality.  General  Houston.'* 
We  shall  not  pretend  to  any  abihty  to  answer  these  questions, 
but  we  shall  endeavor  to  show  as  briefly  as  possible  the  rela- 
tions which  these  persons  bore  to  the  history  we  have  in  hand. 
It  is  a  fact,   that  this    Samuel   Houston,   a  man  who  had 
made  himself  conspicuous  as   a  friend   of  General   Jackson 
prior  to  the  election  of  1828,  who  had  been  a  representative 
from  Tennessee   in  Congress,   as  well  as   Governor  of  that 
State,  and  who  boasted  much  of  his  possessing  the  confidence 
of  the  President,  suddenly  left  Washington,   but  not  without 
leaving  behind  him  some  who  knew  of  his  intended  course, 
and  that  he  made  his  appearance  in   Texas  as  an  expatriated 
citizen,  anxious  to   leave   his   own  country   in  order  that  he 
might  take  the  benefit  of  the  advantages  held  out  by  the  su- 
perior moral  and  social   condition  of  Mexico,  by  becoming  a 
settler  under  its  jurisdiction^     His  example  was  soon  followed 
by  many  of  those  who  boast  of  belonging  to  the  freest  nation 
under  the  sun.     Mexico  was  indiscreet  enough  to   suppose 
that  they  came  in   earnest.     No  effort  was  made,  by  those 
who  knew  better,   to   undeceive  her,   and   she  therefore  was 
lavish  in  her  offers  of  land  and  all  other  privileges.     But  she 
would  not  grant  every  conceivable  demand.     The   Mexican 
constitution   by  which  the  territories  of  Coahuila  and   Texas 
were  united  abolished  slavery.    The  new  settlers  insisted  upon 
separating  Texas  from  Coahuila,   and  making  a  new  constitu- 
tion for  the  former,  which  omitted  the  clause  abolishing  slave- 
ry.    Mexico   preferred  the  old  form  of  government,  and  the 
settlers  deemed  the  moment  auspicious  for  declaring  their  in- 
dependence.    And   General   Houston,   not  long  afterwards, 
wrote  to  his  friend  Dunlap  of  Tennessee,  for  aid  in  the  strug- 
gle that  would  ensue,  because,  to  use  his  own  words — 

There  is  but  one  feeling  in  Texas,  in  my   opinion,  and  that  is,  to  estab- 
lish the  independence  of  Texas,  and  to  be  attached  to  the  United  States. 

We  make  no  comment  on  these  facts,  because  we  are  con- 
fident that  with  all  reasonable  and  fair-judging  citizens  they 


17 

need  none.  The  independence  of  Texas  was  established 
principally  by  means  of  aid  from  the  United  States.  And 
now  that  the  proposal  to  be  attached  is  once  more  made,  Mr. 
Senator  Walker,  in  his  elaborate  pamphlet,  professes  to  see 
no  difference  between  the  nature  of  this  proposal,  as  it  affects 
the  disposition  towards  us  of  Mexico,  which  has  never  yet 
acknowledged  the  independence  of  Texas,  and  that  made 
during  Mr.  Adams's  administration,  to  obtain  by  purchase  the 
territory  from  Mexico  herself,  before  her  independence  had 
been  acknowledged  by  Spain.  He  maintains  that  Spain,  with 
whom  we  were  then  on  friendly  terms,  had  as  much  right  to  be 
offended  with  us  in  the  one  case,  as  Mexico  has  in  the  other. 
This  is  specious  and  plausible,  but  it  is  as  unsound  as  every 
other  part  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  annexation  ; — for  sure- 
ly there  is  a  moral  feeUng  in  the  breast  of  every  man,  which 
leads  him  to  distinguish  between  actions  done  under  wholly 
different  circumstances.  Mexico  declared  herself  indepen- 
dent of  Spain.  The  struggle  was  between  Mexicans  and 
Spaniards,  and  the  United  States  did  not  interfere  to  decide 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  went 
into  Texas  ostensibly  as  settlers,  and  they  declared  Texas 
independent  of  Mexico.  Can  it  be  said  that  the  United 
States  did  not  create  as  well  as  decide  the  struggle  ?  Can  it  be 
said  that  the  government  was  not  during  the  whole  time  anx- 
iously betraying  its  interest  in  the  result,  by  perpetual  solicita- 
tion of  Mexico  to  cede  the  country  as  it  was,  whether  in  a  state 
of  insurrection  or  not  ?  Does  not  the  law  forbid  individuals  to 
take  advantage  of  their  own  wrong  ?  And  is  it  not  the  wrong 
of  our  citizens,  transplanted  for  a  short  time  to  another  soil, 
which  has  enabled  us  to  treat  with  them  for  that  soil,  against 
the  consent  and  to  the  injury  of  Mexico  ?  So  long  as  Spairf^ 
was  unable  to  recover  any  territory  from  the  Mexicans,  it 
could  be  matter  of  no  offence  who  purchased  the  soil  of  the 


new  owners.     But  the  Mexicans   certainly  have  a  right  to  beJL.J 
offended,  if  the   government  with  whom  it  is  at  peace,  first  '     ^i 
succeeds  in  tearing  off  a  part  of  their  country,  by  instigating  (Ve>^^^ 


resistance  to  their  authority  on  the  part  of  its  citizens  import-  Vi'SJ^c/ 
ed  for  the  purpose,  and  then,  after  a  few  years  have  passed  .fj(J(\}Jt 
just  sufficient  to  save  appearances,  it  takes  through  the  agency  e^^^/j 
of  those  citizens  that  country  very  quietly  within  its  own  ju-  y\>  6< 
risdiction,  as  the  legitimate  offspring  of  this  treachery.  *  ^r 

The  Mexicans  may  be  a  feeble  people,  wanting  in  the  en-| 
ergy  which  is  characteristic  of  the  United  States,  but  they  are 
not  wanting  in  discernment.     They  long  since  penetrated  the 
ambitious  designs  of  their  powerful  neighbor,  and  they  have 
not  been  without  industry  in  watching  and  exposing  its  action 


18 

to  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world.  From  the  day  of  the  ac- 
cession of  General  Jackson  to  the  Presidency,  to  the  last  of 
his  second  term,  no  effort  was  left  untried  by  him,  by  which  he 
could  hope  to  acquire  Texas.  In  the  summer  of  1829,  Mr. 
Anthony  Butler,  the  person  who  was  to  be  employed  by  him 
as  his  negotiator,  came  to  Washington,  and  had  long  confer- 
ences with  him,  and  with  Mr.  Van  Buren,  that  he  might 
be  the  more  fully  master  of  all  the  designs  of  the  administra- 
tion. In  1830,  General  Jackson's  own  affidavit  on  record  in 
the  Court  at  Washington  proves  that  he  became  fully  aware 
of  General  Houston's  schemes,  but  that  instead  of  communi- 
cating his  information  to  the  government  with  which  we  were 
at  peace,  and  which  was  most  deeply  affected  by  them,  he 
confined  himself  to  a  letter  of  inquiry,  addressed,  not  to  the 
Governor,  but  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Territory  of  Arkansas, 
and  calculated  rather  to  invite  a  contradiction  of  the  designs 
charged,  than  to  elicit  any  facts.  It  should  be  recollected, 
that  this  was  at  just  about  the  same  time  that  the  singular 
article  already  quoted,  intimating,  as  from  a  source  entitled 
to  "  the  highest  credit,"  that  Texas  might  "throw  off  the 
yoke  of  allegiance  to  Mexico" — appeared  in  the  columns  of 
the  State  Gazette  of  this  very  Arkansas  Territory^  And  not 
satisfied  with  the  ordinary  forms  of  official  intercourse,  Gen- 
eral Jackson  himself,  notwithstanding  the  positi.on  he  occupied 
which  seems  to  require  no  little  delicacy  in  the  management 
of  the  foreign  relations,  kept  up  a  constant  interchange  of 
private  and  confidential  letters  with  Mr.  Butler,  the  perpet- 
ually recurring  burden  of  which,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  re- 
plies of  that  gentleman,  was  Texas,  Texas. 

Mr.  Tyler  has  been  much  blamed  for  carrying  on  a  secret 
negotiation  with  Texas.  We  have  no  disposition  to  volun- 
teer any  palHation  of  his  measures  ;  but,  we  ask,  what  censure 
should  his  conduct  bear  in  this  instance,  in  comparison  with 
that  of  his  more  distinguished  predecessor  ?  He  has,  to  be  sure 
tried  to  betray  the  Union,  by  a  sudden  stroke  of  policy,  into  a 
measure  which  he  knew  a  large  part  of  it  held  in  great  detest- 
ation, and  deemed  subversive  of  the  Constitution.  But  Gen- 
eral Jackson  continued  secretly  at  work  during  eight  long 
years,  coaxing,  threatening,  proposing  treaties  never  to  be 
executed,  harping  upon  private  claims,  bad  as  well  as  good, 
for  the  sake  of  obtaining  a  denial  of  them  that  would  make 
cause  of  quarrel,  endeavoring  to  raise  the  most  frivolous 
doubts,  in  Order  to  unsettle  the  clear  boundary  of  the  Sabine, 
and  only  stopping  short  at  the  deliberate  proposal  by  Mr. 
Butler,  of  carrying  every  thing  by  downright  bribery  and  cor- 
ruption. 


19 


These  facts  are  all  substantiated  even  by  the  partial  evi- 
dence (made  so  it  should  be  observed,  through  the  suppress- 
ions of  the  administration  of  Mr.  Van  Buren)  which  has  been 
furnished  in  answer  to  a  call  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
at  Washington.  Yet  they  have  never  excited  the  pubhc  at- 
tention in  a  degree  at  all  to  correspond  to  the  importance  of 
the  disclosures  which  they  make.  Most  of  the  people  believe 
very  sincerely  that  this  alarm  about  Texas  is  a  most  vision- 
ary fear — that  no  one  has  ever  been  in  earnest  in  pressing  the 
point,  and  that  it  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  a  device  of  vio- 
lent abolitionists  to  injure  the  character  of  our  public  men  than 
as  having  any  foundation  in  truth  and  their  own  conduct.  Lit- 
tle are  they  aware  that  the  whole  force  of  the  administration 
under  a  most  energetic  President  is  proved  by  papers  which 
defy  contradiction  to  have  been  secretly  exerted  to  bring  about 
a  cession  of  this  territory  voluntarily  by  Mexico,  at  the  same 
time  that  it  was  instigating  revolutionary  movements  on  the 
part  of  persons  leagued  in  the  conspiracy  within  the  limits  of 
that  territory  itself,  persons  who  left  the  United  States  for  the 
purpose,  in  order  to  bring  about  by  the  use  of  force,  the 
same  result. 

The  negotiation  with  Mexico  finally  failed.  Mr.  Butler 
could  not  succeed  in  effecting  as  much  as  he  had  promised  to 
do  and  as  a  consequence  he  was  obliged  to  retire  from  the 
scene.  But  it  was  not  until  after  he  had  spent  months  in  the 
territory  of  Texas  itself  and  months  more  in  Washington  which 
were  employed  in  arranging  the  details  of  the  last  act  of  trea- 
chery to  a  friendly  nation.  A  final  proposition  was  made  to 
the  government  of  Mexico  to  take  all  of  the  territory  east  of 
the  Rio  del  Norte,  up  to  the  thirty-seventh  parallel  of  latitude, 
and  from  thence  west  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This  would  have 
included  a  great  part  of  upper  Cahfornia,  New  Mexico  and 
Santa  Fe — and  for  this  immense  territory  the  sum  of  six  mil- 
lions of  dollars  was  offered.  And  upon  the  rejection  of  this 
proposal  Mr.  Butler  retired  from  his  mission  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ultimately  taking  up  the  thread  of  operations  in  Tex- 
as itself,  and  organizing  more  effectively  by  means  of  secret 
societies  the  other  part  of  the  plan  which  had  been  agreed 
upon. 

We  have  already  remarked,  that  there  are  many  ways  in 
America  to  arrive  at  the  same  result.  If  one  fails,  another 
will  be  tried.  The  truth  of  this  is  visible  enough  throughout 
all  the  proceedings  about  Texas.  General  Samuel  Houston 
the  gentleman  who  had  devised  this  scheme  at  Washington, 
about  which  President  Jackson  thought  it  proper  to  send 
all  the  way  to  the   Secretary  of  State  of  the  Territory  of 


20 


Arkansas  to  inquire,  had  not  been  idle  during  the  time  that 
these  negotiations  were  going  on.  He  became  a  settler  in 
Texas,  very  soon  worked  himself  up  into  a  discontented 
citizen,  and  finally  became  the  head  of  an  insurrectionary 
force.  The  quarrel  came  to  an  issue  not  long  after  Mr.  But- 
ler had  surrendered  all  hope  from  negotiation.  And  when 
it  seemed  by  no  means  unhkely,  that  General  Santa  Anna, 
who  was  advancing  with  a  mihtary  force  from  Mexico, 
would  be  able  to  stifle  the  revolt  at  once,  the  government 
at  Washington,  and  General  Jackson,  by  a  subsequent  let- 
ter, under  his  own  signature,  authorised  and  directed  Gen- 
eral Gaines  to  advance  into  the  territory  of  Texas,  and  re- 
main there,  under  the  pretence  that  the  boundary  was  still 
unsettled  and  that  the  presence  of  a  United  States  force  was 
necessary  to  secure  it  against  Indian  hostility. 

It  appears  that  from  the  period  of  the  recall  of  Mr.  Butler 
from  Mexico,  and  the  breaking  out  of  the  struggle  in  Texas, 
which  events  were  nearly  cotemporaneous,  the  policy  of  the 
administration  took  a  new  turn.  It  was  no  longer  necessary 
for  the  government  of  the  United  States  to  coax  Mexico  to 
a  voluntary  cession  of  a  territory  which  was  now  in  a  state  of 
hopeful  rebellion.  The  more  advisable  course  seemed  to  be 
to  give  as  much  aid  and  countenance  to  the  insurrection  as 
was  consistent  with  our  professedly  neutral  position,  not 
merely  by  securing  the  presence  of  the  United  States  troops 
in  the  theatre  of  the  war,  but  also  by  trying  to  pick  a  quarrel 
with  Mexico  on  a  new  and  separate  account  of  our  own. 
Whilst  on  the  one  hand  General  Jackson  announced  by  a 
message  to  Congress,  on  the  22d  December,  that  under  all 
the  circumstances  attending  the  contest  in  Texas,  it  was  un- 
advisable  at  that  time  to  acknowledge  the  independence  of 
that  country  ;  on  the  other  hand  he  equally  announced,  six 
weeks  afterwards,  that  no  peaceful  adjustment  of  certain  mat- 
ters in  controversy  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico 
could  be  expected,  that  was  not  sustained  by  war  measures, 
and  the  granting  of  authority  to  make  reprisals  upon  her  com- 
merce. The  decisive  battle  of  San  Jacinto  had  been  fought, 
and  General  Santa  Anna  who  had  been  made  prisoner  to  the 
Texans,  was  sent  to  Washington  to  experience  the  double 
satisfaction  of  a  war  threat  from  the  United  States  on  one 
side,  and  of  a  sense  of  his  personal  danger  from  his  victors  on 
the  other,  if  he  did  not  use  all  his  influence  to  bring  about  the 
grand  desideratum,  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  the  United 
States.  He  appears  to  have  been  w^illing  to  concede  all  that 
was  required  of  him  under  this  ^tate  of  duresse.  The  conse- 
quence  was  immediately  perceptible.     Notwithstanding  and 


OF 


21 


jn  spite  of  the  message  of  the  22d  of  December,  dissuading 
the  acknowledgment  of  Texan  Independence  for  many- 
strong  reasons  therein  given,  an  amendment  was  suddenly  en- 
grafted upon  the  annual  appropriation  bill,  in  one  of  its  last 
stages  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  three  or  four  days 
prior  to  the  third  of  March,  1837,  which  amendment  provid- 
ed for  the  pay  of  a  diplomatic  agent  to  the  republic  of  Texas, 
as  soon  as  the  President  should  receive  satisfactory  evidence 
that  Texas  was  an  independent  power.  The  Senate  con- 
sented. Almost,  perhaps  quite  in  the  selfsame  hour  that  the 
President  signed  the  appropriation  bill,  he  also  obtained  such 
evidence  of  the  independence  of  Texas  as  to  induce  him 
forthwith,  and  before  the  expiration  of  the  remaining  minutes 
of  his  power  as  President,  to  nominate  the  diplomatic  agent 
provided  for  in  the  bill.  This  was  one  of  his  very  last  offi- 
cial acts.  If  his  policy  had  not  been  successful  in  acquiring 
to  the  United  States  this  territory,  he  at  any  rate  had  the 
consolation  to  reflect  that  he  had  wrested  it  from  Mexico,  in 
payment  for  her  obstinacy,  in  refusing  to  sell  it  when  she  was 
required  so  to  do. 

After  such  an  act  as  this,  who  is  there  that  ought  to  won- 
der at  the  attempt  of  Mr.  Tyler,  to  steal  a  march  upon  the 
country  with  a  treaty  ?  Yet  the  lapse  of  less  than  seven 
years  has  had  the  effect  of  so  far  sinking  the  old  proceeding 
into  obhvion  throughout  the  Northern  States,  that  people  ac- 
tually seem  to  regard  this  new  one  as  something  entirely  un- 
precedented. Nothing  wakes  them  up  but  the  clap  of  thun- 
der which  comes  after  the  hghtning  has  done  all  the  damage 
possible.  The  two  great  parties  are  so  afraid  of  doing  or 
saying  any  thing  which  shall  appear  in  the  least  to  justify  the 
organization  of  the  third  or  abolition  party,  that  they  have 
united  in  striving  to  forget  as  far  as  possible  that  there  are  any 
questions  at  all  which  must  grow  out  of  the  existence  of  slavery. 
Had  they  met  those  questions  as  they  ought  in  the  outset,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there  would  not  now  have  been 
any  third  party  worth  considering.  It  is  not  the  mere  mo- 
mentary outbreak  against  a  measure  upon  the  eve  of  accom- 
plishment, preceded  by  a  cold  and  studied  incredulity  of  its 
existence  until  it  becomes  evident  beyond  the  possibility  of 
contradiction,  that  will  ever  go  far  to  counteract  a  systematic 
pohcy  managed  by  persons  occupying  stations  of  power  un- 
der the  general  government,  or  that  will  satisfy  the  just  clamor 
of  an  irritated  community  after  the  time  shall  have  passed 
when  action  might  have  been  properly  directed. 

And  now  that  we  can  look  back  upon  the  history  of  this 
business,  we  think  that  one  thing  will  be  most  particularly 


22 


striking  to  our  observation.  And  that  is,  the  change  of  re- 
lation which  the  United  States  bears  to  the  territory  of  Texas 
at  the  present  time  from  that  which  they  bore  in  1825,  when 
the  negotiations  commenced.  For  then  it  was  a  simple  pio- 
ceeding  unclouded  by  any  suspicion  of  sinister  design.  Even 
the  blight  of  domestic  slavery  had  not  in  any  great  degree 
fallen  upon  the  land.  But  now  we  know  the  fact  that  slavery 
was  introduced  by  the  immigrants  from  these  States  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  law  of  Mexico.  That  it  constituted  the  turn- 
ing point  in  the  revolution  of  the  Texans,  and  that  it  is  the 
cause  in  behalf  of  which  the  whole  power  of  our  government 
has  been  exerted  directly  or  indirectly  as  well  in  the  negotia- 
tion that  has  taken  place  as  in  the  subsequent  operations  of 
the  settlers  themselves.  What  is  it  then  that  the  United 
States  are  called  upon  to  sanction  by  now  acquiring  Texas  ? 
Is  it  not  the  entire  process  by  which  we  have  converted  a 
free  into  a  Slave  State,  and  extended  the  influence  of  the 
domestic  institution  at  the  cost  of  every  principle  of  fair 
dealing  and  of  right.  And  is  this  not  a  wholly  new  feature 
since  the  year  1825  which  completely  alters  the  nature  of 
the  transaction,  and  converts  an  honest  and  open  offer  to 
purchase  into  a  sharper's  contrivance  to  acquire  property  in 
an  underhand  way,  for  an  unjustifiable  purpose  ? 

There  was  very  much  such  a  burst  of  popular  feeling  in  1837 
as  has  lately  taken  place  against  the  measure.  The  Legisla- 
tures of  Ohio,  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island  passed  resolu- 
tions which  had  then  some  effect  in  checking  its  prosecution. 
Yet  had  General  Jackson  remained  at  the  head  of  the  govern- 
ment, we  have  very  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  been  exe- 
cuted. But  the  policy  of  his  wary  successor  was  too  cautious 
to  make  him  willing  to  risk  beginning  his  administration  with  a 
war  and  a  completely  disordered  state  of  the  finances  at  the 
same  time.  On  the  4th  of  August,  1837,  Mr.  Memucan  Hunt, 
specially  appointed  by  Texas  for  the  purpose,  opened  a  nego- 
tiation with  the  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Forsyth,  by  proposing 
*'to  unite  the  two  people  under  one  and  the  same  government." 
The  first  condition  prescribed  by  his  government  was  ''  the 
free  and  unmolested  authority  over  their  slave  population." 
This,  it  will  be  recollected,  was  about  one  month  before 
the  time  at  which  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  had 
been  called  to  meet  by  proclamation  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  on 
account  of  the  suspension  of  specie  payments  by  the  banks 
throughout  the  Union.  It  was  quite  enough  for  the  adminis- 
tration to  be  obliged  to  face  an  active  and  powerful  opposition 
on  the  subject  of  the  currency,  without  adding  the  plentiful 
materials  to  be  gathered  from  the  prospect  of  a  war  with  a 


23 

neighboring  power.  Mexico  had  protested  against  the  recog- 
nition of  Texan  Independence,  carried  through,  as  it  had 
been,  in  the  manner  already  described  ;  but  she  had  also  of- 
fered to  remove  all  reasonable  grounds  of  complaint  on  the 
score  upon  which  General  Jackson  had  endeavored  to  press 
the  two  countries  into  war — the  claims  for  indemnity  to  pri- 
vate citizens.  No  other  pretext,  therefore,  remained  to  save 
the  United  States  from  the  odium  of  incurring  the  war  to  jus- 
tify its  own  wrong  done  in  Texas.  Mr.  Van  Buren  did  not 
feel  himself  seated  firmly  enough  to  encounter  the  fury  of 
such  a  tempest  as  this  would  excite.  He  directed  Mr. 
Forsyth  to  decline  the  offer  of  the  Texan  government,  made 
through  Mr.  Hunt.  And  in  his  refusal  he  distinctly  assigned 
as  the  reason,  that  the  Mexican  government  might  consider 
such  an  act  as  tantamount  to  a  declaration  of  war.  Even 
Mr.  Senator  Walker,  in  his  pamphlet,  is  obliged  to  confess, 
which  he  does  with  singular  disinterestedness,  considering 
that  he  is  and  has  been  the  "  Magnus  Apollo"  of  the  Tex- 
ans,  that  "in  1837,  within  a  few  weeks  or  months  succeed- 
mg  our  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Texas,  and  be- 
fore her  recognition  by  any  foreign  powers,  it  (that  is  the  an- 
nexation by  treaty)  might  have  subjected  us  to  unjust  impu- 
tations, and  therefore  it  might  have  been  deemed  hiexpedient 
under  such  a  time  and  under  such  circumstances.''^  The 
itahc  letters  belong  to  Mr.  Walker,  and  not  to  us,  and  we 
agree  with  him  in  every  thing  affirmed  or  implied  in  the  sen- 
tence, excepting  in  the  statement  that  the  "imputations"  to 
which  we  should  have  subjected  ourselves  would  have  been 
"  unjust." 

What  Mr.  Van  Buren  would  have  done  under  other  cir- 
cumstances, or  what  he  will  do  if  he  should  again  get  into 
power,  we  shall  not  undertake  to  pronounce.  We  judge  no 
man  excepting  by  his  acts,  and  under  the  same  rule,  we  are 
willing  to  give  him  all  the  credit  which  his  conduct  in  this  in- 
stance deserves.  At  the  same  time,  judging  him  by  all  of  his 
acts  taken  together,  we  must  confess  that  we  have  no  confi- 
dence in  his  discovering  any  obstacles  to  this  treaty  of  annex- 
ation which  the  people  do  not  themselves  most  distinctly  fur- 
nish to  his  vision. 

Let  us  now  return  to  Mr.  Senator  Walker,  who  appears  to 
think  that  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  reannexation,  as  he  is  al- 
ways pleased  to  call  it,  which  existed  in  1837,  are  now  re- 
moved. "But  now,"  he  says  in  his  pamphlet,  "  when  seven 
years  have  elapsed  since  our  recognition  of  the  independence 
of  Texas  ;  and  she  has  been  recognised  for  many  years  as  an 
independent  power  by  the  great  nations  of  Europe,  and  her 


m 

sovereignty  fully  established,  and  fully  acknowledged,  there  can 
be  no  objection  to  such  a  treaty  at  this  period."  From  all 
which  we  can  only  gather  that  this  gentleman  thinks  Mexico 
is  now  barred  of  her  claim  by  a  sort  of  statute  of  limitations 
interpolated  into  the  law  of  nations  like  that  which  runs  against 
the  recovery  of  small  debts  with  us.  But  with  all  due  defer- 
ence to  the  gentleman,  it  is  not  exactly  what  we  think  in  this 
case,  that  should  be  our  guide,  but  what  the  world  will  think 
and  justly  think,  too.  Does  the  delay  of  seven  years  alter  in 
any  respect  the  nature  of  one  of  those  peculiar  "  circum- 
stances^^ to  which  Mr.  Walker  so  significantly  alludes  as  mak- 
ing the  act  inexpedient  in  1837  ?  Does  it  in  the  least  mod- 
ify the  objections  of  Mexico  to  the  measure  ?  We  have  the 
best  reason  to  know  that  it  does  not.  For  the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment and  the  Mexican  Minister,  General  Almonte,  more 
keen-sighted  than  most  of  our  news-mongers  in  Washington, 
appear  to  have  got  a  scent  of  the  negotiation  proposed  by 
Mr.  Tyler  as  early  as  in  August  last. 

On  the  23d  of  that  month,  Mr.  de  Boccanegra,  the  For- 
eign Secretary  of  Mexico,  addressed  a  note  to  Mr.  Waddy 
Thompson,  the  Minister  of  the  United  States,  in  which  he 
in  quite  a  spirit  of  foresight,  alluded  to  the  fact  that  a  "  propo- 
sition would  be  submitted  to  the  deliberation  of  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States"  at  the  present  session,  "  to  incorporate 
with  them,  the  so-called  republic  of  Texas,"  and  he  went  on 
further  to  request  Mr.  Thompson  to  announce  to  his  govern- 
ment that  Mexico  would  consider  the  adoption  of  such  an  act 
equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war,  "leaving"  as  he  says,  "to 
the  civilized  world  to  determine  with  regard  to  the  justice  of 
the  cause  of  the  Mexican  nation  in  a  struggle  which  it  has 
been  so  far  from  provoking."  Not  content  with  this  notice, 
General  Almonte,  the  Mexican  Minister  at  Washington, 
wrote  on  the  third  of  November  a  letter  to  the  Secretary  of 
State,  Mr.  Upshur,  in  which  he  says  that  this  annexation, 
"  if  carried  into  effect,  cannot  be  considered  by  Mexico  in 
any  other  aspect  than  as  a  direct  aggression."  "  He  more- 
over declares,  by  express  order  of  his  government,  that  on 
sanction  being  given  by  the  Executive  of  the  Union  to  the 
incorporation  of  Texas  into  the  United  States,  he  will  con- 
sider his  mission  ended  ;  seeing  that,  as  the  Secretary  of 
State  will  have  learned,  the  Mexican  government  is  resolved 
to  declare  war  so  soon  as  it  receives  information  of  such  an 
act."  This  is  surely  plain  spoken  enough.  Mr.  Upshur,  to 
be  sure,  took  the  matter  up  in  a  very  high  strain,  and  affect- 
ing to  consider  his  country  insulted  by  an  imputation  which  if 
not  merited  would  scarcely  have  required  notice,  he  evaded 


25 

answering  the  material  question  entirely.  But  there  is  reason 
to  believe  that  this  letter  was  not  without  its  effect  in  bring- 
ing about  a  modification  of  the  course  of  the  President,  so  far 
as  to  make  that  a  secret  and  clandestine  transaction,  which 
was  designed  to  have  been  announced  in  his  message  to  Con- 
gress, at  the  commencement  of  the  session. 

Another  of  Mr.  Walker's  reasons  why  the  case  is  not  now 
the  same  that  it  was  in  1837,  is,  that  the  independence  of 
Texas  "is  now  recognized  by  the  great  nations  of  Europe, 
and  her  sovereignty  fully  estabhshed  and  fully  acknowledg- 
ed," which  it  was  not  at  that  time.  The  argument,  then, 
is  something  of  this  sort : — Texas  was  not  quite  assured  of 
her  independence  in  1837,  and  therefore,  considering  her  pe- 
culiar circumstances,  it  was  not  advisable  for  us  to  take  her 
under  our  protection  at  that  time,  when  she  most  needed  it. 
But  now  that  she  is  well  estabhshed,  independent,  and  has  the 
support  of  foreign  nations,  is  just  the  moment  for  her  to 
cease  to  be  so,  for  the  sake  of  joining  us.  Surely,  if  Texas 
be  now  able  to  go  on  alone,  countenanced  as  she  is  by  the 
great  powers  of  Europe,  there  are  many  reasons  why  the 
United  States  should  join  to  sustain  her  in  that  policy  instead 
of  tempting  her  to  adopting  an  opposite  one.  One  of  the 
strongest  is,  that  it  would  be  the  means  of  completely  avoid- 
ing the  imputation  of  any  such  motives  or  unworthy  designs 
as  Mr.  Upshur  immediately  perceived  in  General  Almonte's 
letter  ;  probably  because  his  own  conscience  was  the  moni- 
tor that  made  him  watch  for  them  there.  There  will  not 
be  any  question  hereafter  made  of  the  disinterestedness  of 
the  United  States,  if  time  shall  show  that  they  have  in  no 
way  gained  what  seems  a  benefit  to  themselves  by  the  seces- 
sion of  Texas  from  Mexico.  Surely,  if  we  consider  many 
portions  of  the  policy  of  the  government  as  it  has  been  at- 
tempted very  faintly  to  delineate  it  in  these  papers,  the  good 
faith  of  the  country  stands  in  great  need  of  some  such  ultimate 
justification  as  this  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Surely,  nothing 
would  at  this  moment  go  farther  to  save  our  history  from  one 
of  its  most  unfortunate  pages  than  a  determination  now  made 
to  be  friendly  to  Texas,  exactly  as  we  are  friendly  to  every 
other  nation  of  the  globe. 

Unfortunately,  however,  for  him  the  end  of  Mr.  Walker's 
pamphlet  contradicts  the  beginning.  This  country  of  Texas, 
whose  independence  "  is  now  so  fully  recognized  by  the 
great  nations  of  Europe,  and  her  sovereignty  so  fully  estab- 
lished" on  the  seventh  page  turns  out  on  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  pages  to  be  "a  power  too  feeble  to  guard  her  rights 
as  a  neutral  power."     "  The  flag  of  England   will  soon  float 


26 

overt"  it  as  a  British  province,  carved  out  of  the  dismembered 
valley  of  the  West."  "  But  even  if  not  a  dependency  or  a 
colony,  England,  as  she  always  heretofore  has  done  in  the 
case  of  neutrals,  would  seize  upon  her  soil,  her  coast,  her 
harbors,  her  rivers,  and  our  and  her  Indians,  in  her  invasion 
of  the  valley  of  the  West ;  and  the  only  certain  measure  of 
defence  and  protection  is  the  re-annexation  of  Texas."  Such 
is  the  statement  of  the  condition  of  Texas,  when  it  suits  Mr. 
Walker  to  consider  her  as  not  so  well  established,  nor  her  in- 
dependence so  fully  recognized.  Her  condition  is,  then,  not 
yet  much  changed  from  what  it  was  in  J  837.  If  this  be 
granted,  then  have  the  Mexicans  reasonable  ground  for  hope 
that  they  may  yet  get  back  their  territory,  provided  that  we 
do  not  commit  a  hostile  act  by  taking  possession  of  it  our- 
selves, in  the  name  and  on  the  application  of  the  insurgents. 
In  which  case,  we  clearly  break  our  treaty  with  a  power  with 
v^^hich  we  are  at  peace,  for  the  sake  of  an  acquisition  of  ter- 
ritory ;  or  in  other  words,  the  ''  circumstances"  which  Mr. 
Walker  speaks  of  as  forbidding  the  act  in  1837,  remain  in 
statu  quo  in  1844.  In  our  humble  opinion,  there  is  no  get- 
ting away  from  this  dilemma.  Either  Texas  can  maintain 
her  independence  or  she  cannot.  If  she  can,  then  would  it 
be  perfectly  safe,  and  very  creditable  to  the  Union,  to  sus- 
tain her  independent  attitude.  If  she  cannot,  then  Mexico 
has  a  right  to  complain  of  our  hostility  if  we  take  from  her  the 
chance  of  recovering  her  territory. 

We  have  now  gone  through  with  the  most  material  part  of 
the  history  of  our  relations  with  Texas  and  Mexico,  and  we 
confidently  challenge  any  impartial  person  to  review  it,  and 
then  deny  that  there  is  a  broad  difference  observable  between 
the  early  and  late  policy  of  the  government  on  this  subject. 
The  administration  of  Mr.  Adams  sought  to  acquire  the  land^ 
free  from  any  and  every  incumbrance  with  which  it  is  now 
loaded,  in  a  fair,  open,  and  honorable  manner.  That  of  his 
successor  stimulated  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  go 
and  take  possession  of  it  under  the  cloak  of  amity,  and  then, 
by  every  artifice,  endeavored  to  wrest  from  the  hands  of  a 
nation,  with  which  we  professed  to  be  at  peace,  the  territory 
which  they  obstinately  refused  to  cede  of  their  own  accord. 
One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  this  new  policy,  was  the 
establishment  of  the  institution  of  domestic  slavery,  directly  in 
the  face  of  the  Mexican  authority.  This  was  the  common 
bond  designed  to  keep  the  insurgents  steady  to  the  interests 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  the  bond  which  now  holds  them 
to  the  policy  of  annexation.  The  rumor  about  their  seeking 
the  protection  of  Great  Britain,  is  only  designed  to  catch  such 


27 

simpletons  in  the  Free  States  as  are  predisposed  to  believe 
any  thing  that  may  be  told  them.  They  seek  the  protection  of 
a  power,  which  knocks  the  manacles  off  from  every  slave  with- 
in the  scope  of  its  influence  !  They  voluntarily  seek  to  sacri- 
fice a  property  in  man,  to  defend  and  sustain  which,  they  un- 
dertook the  insurrection  against  the  Mexican  power  !  The 
idea  is  amusing,  to  those  who  have  watched  with  attention  the 
desperation  with  which  the  same  men,  when  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  and  their  friends,  have  always  contended  for 
that  property.  Sooner  than  that  this  should  take  place,  the 
whole  of  the  company  immigrating  into  Texas,  would  vacate 
the  lands  of  that  territory,  and  return  to  these  favored  regions, 
where  slavery  and  the  constitution  are  said  to  flourish  togeth- 
er and  where  it  is  treason  to  doubt  the  propriety  of  continuing 
special  privileges,  which  have  the  effect  of  encouraging  the 
increase  of  the  slave  population.  When  will  the  free  citizens, 
who  love  our  institutions,  cease  to  be  led  blindfold  into  the 
snares  which  are  so  unblushingly  prepared  for  them  ? 

When  Mr.  Walker,  acting  in  concurrence  with  General 
Jackson,  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  recognition,  by  the  Unit- 
ed States,  of  the  independence  of  Texas,  in  the  manner 
which  has  been  already  explained,  he  probably  congratulated 
himself  upon  the  measure,  considering  it  as  one  step  nearer  to 
the  great  object  of  his  wishes.  He  did  not  then  foresee 
the  rise  of  a  new  objection  to  it,  growing  out  of  the  very 
change  thus  effected  in  the  relation  of  that  country  to  ours. 
He  did  not  perceive  that  the  admission  of  Texas  as  an  inde- 
pendent foreign  State  was  an  unprecedented  act  of  power  in 
the  general  government  not  sanctioned  by  the  examples  either 
of  Louisiana  or  the  Florida  treaties. 

This  objection  is  now  very  gravely  urged  in  many  quarters, 
and,  we  must  confess,  we  see  no  way  to  remove  it,  consist- 
ently with  the  slightest  respect  to  the  Constitution,  which  the 
members  of  Congress  are  all  sworn  to  support.  Although 
the  acquisition  of  territory  under  the  treaties  referred  to  was 
a  very  questionable  proceeding,  when  judged  by  the  naked 
provisions  of  the  constitution,  still,  as  the  people  sanctioned 
the  act  by  their  silence,  we  shall  not  now  undertake,  so  far  as 
that  goes,  to  review  the  decision.  What  Mr.  Jefferson,  the 
person  under  whose  administration  the  cession  of  Louisiana 
took  place,  thought  of  the  matter,  is  very  well  known.  In 
his  letter  to  Wilson  Carey  Nicholas,  he  says — "  But  when  I 
consider  that  the  limits  of  the  United  States  are  precisely  fix- 
ed by  the  treaty  of  1783,  that  the  constitution  expressly  de- 
clares itself  to  be  made  for  the  United  States,  I  cannot  help 
believing  the  intention  was  not  to  permit  Congress  to  admit 


28 

into  the  Union  new  States,  which  should  be  formed  out"  (that 
is,  beyond  the  hmits)  "of  the  territory  for  which,  and  under 
whose  authority  alone,  they  were  then  acting.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve it  was  meant  that  they  might  receive  England,  Ireland, 
Holland,  &c.,  into  it,  which  would  be  the  case  on  your  con- 
struction. When  an  instrument  admits  two  constructions — 
the  one  safe,  the  other  dangerous — the  one  precise,  the  other 
indefinite — I  prefer  that  which  is  safe  and  precise.  I  had 
rather  ask  an  enlargement  of  power  from  the  nation,  where  it 
is  found  necessary,  than  to  assume  it  by  a  construction  which 
would  make  our  powers  boundless.  Our  peculiar  security  is 
is  in  the  possession  of  a  written  constitution.  Let  us  not 
make  it  a  blank  paper  by  construction.''^ 

This  is  strong  reasoning,  but  we  have  long  been  aware  of 
the  fact,  that  much  as  the  citizens  of  the  Southern  States 
profess  to  revere  the  memory  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  to  follow 
his  doctrines,  they  seldom  respect  them  in  practice,  further 
than  as  they  happen  to  coincide  \with  the  immediate  policy 
which  they  have  in  view.  Doubtful  as  Mr.  Jefferson  was  of 
his  power,  the  cession  of  Louisiana,  nevertheless,  took  place. 
It  was,  however,  but  the  cession  of  a  territory  by  a  govern- 
ment of  the  old,  to  one  in  the  new  world  ;  it  did  not  involve 
the  question  whether  one  government  itself  could  cede  itself, 
or  another  accept  of  such  a  cession.  The  United  States  as- 
sumed the  territorial  rights,  subject  to  no  existing  political 
conditions,  on  the  part  of  the  small  number  of  people  who 
occupied  the  lands.  They  agreed  to  incorporate  them  into 
the  Union  whenever  they  should  become  numerous  enough  to 
organize  a  State  ;  but  in  the  interval  they  assumed  to  them- 
selves the  unlimited  right  of  regulating  the  government,  and 
parcelling  out  for  sale  the  unoccupied  lands.  The  population 
that  has  been  since  admitted  into  the  Union,  was  thus,  in  a 
great  degree,  drawn  from  the  original  States,  by  the  induce- 
ments presented  in  the  new  lands,  and  the  prospect  of  a  con- 
tinuance in  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  privileges  of  citizenship. 
It  had  never  voluntarily  expatriated  itself.  It  had  never  un- 
dertaken, by  virtue  of  such  expatriation,  to  exercise  indepen- 
dent powers  of  government  unknown  to  our  laws,  nor  had  it 
ever  ceased  to  be  amenable  to  our  authority. 

The  case  of  Texas  is  of  a  very  different  kind.  Texas 
claims  to  be  an  independent  sovereignty  ;  the  United  States 
admit  that  she  is  one.  She  applies  to  be  admitted  to  the 
Union  ;  she  does  not  propose  to  cede  territory  merely.  She 
proposes  to  come  in  at  once,  and  to  exercise  such  rights  of 
citizenship  as  she  shall  beforehand  insist  upon  securing  to  her- 
self, by  conditions  to  be   agreed  upon.     The  United  States, 


29 

on  the  other  hand,  must  assume  new  liabilities,  and  acknowl- 
edge a  new  set  of  authorities.  They  must  acknowledge  the 
validity  of  an  act  done  by  officers  of  another  party,  to  a  treaty 
which  either  makes  them  of  equal  authority  with  their  own,  or 
which,  at  one  blow,  destroys  all  the  authority  which  they 
possess  to  do  the  act.  There  can  be  no  medium.  In  this 
connexion  it  has  been  rather  humorously  asked  by  some,  who 
would  be  the  President  of  the  country,  after  a  treaty  had  been 
made  joining  Texas  and  the  United  States,  supposing  that 
such  an  act  were  constitutional.  Would  it  be  John  Tyler, 
or  Samuel  Houston,  either,  or  both  together  ?  The  question, 
odd  as  it  may  appear,  contains  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter. 
Can  a  government  by  a  treaty  consent  to  annihilate  itself  ? 
Then  where  is  the  binding  force  of  the  treaty,  after  it  is 
made  ?  But,  if  it  does  not  annihilate  itself,  it  enters  into  the 
treaty  on  equal  terms  with  the  government  with  which  it 
treats  ?  In  this  instance,  Texas  would  treat  as  a  State,  not 
with  the  separate  States,  as  such,  but  with  the  United  States. 
She  is  able  then  to  assume  a  position,  and  to  dictate  terms 
towards  us,  such  as  no  other  of  the  States  since  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  could  have  done.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  such  a  treaty  should  compel  her  to  recognise  the  consti- 
tution. Her  position  in  the  Union  would  then  be  secured  by 
that  treaty,  whilst  that  of  the  other  States  would  rest  upon 
the  constitution.  If,  then,  the  people  of  Texas  were  to  take 
it  into  their  heads  to  violate  the  conditions  of  the  constitution, 
whilst  they  adhere  to  their  treaty,  what  would  be  the  mode 
of  redress  ?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  they  broke  the  treaty, 
who  would  conduct  the  negotiations  that  must  follow,  and  when 
would  a  resort  to  war  be  justifiable  ? 

But  the  authorities  of  Texas  may  consent  for  the  purpose 
of  gaining  an  admission  to  resort  to  a  new  expedient  to  avoid 
the  force  of  this  objection.  They  may  consent  to  disfran- 
chise themselves,  and  to  become  simply  a  territory  of  the 
United  States.  Indeed  it  has  been  intimated  that  such  has 
been  the  shape  in  which  the  treaty  has  placed  the  subject. 
Yet  one  moment's  consideration  will  serve  to  show  that  this 
is  only  an  evasion,  and  does  not  remove  the  difficulty.  We 
have  acknowledged  Texas  as  an  independent  State.  Is  it 
competent  for  us  at  any  moment,  by  virtue  of  a  treaty  to  de- 
ny our  words  and  to  declare  in  the  very  act  to  which  she  is  a 
party  that  she  is  no  State  at  all  ?  If  a  territory,  she  either 
has  a  government  or  she  has  not.  If  she  has,  then  our  objec- 
tion is  not  removed.  If  she  has  not,  and  is  without  a  govern- 
ment, why  has  not  Mexico  all  the  rights  to  rule  over  her  which 
she  once  had,  and  which  she  never  has  renounced.     A  confes- 


30 


sion  that  she  must  receive  a  form  of  government  from  a 
neighboring  State  surely  makes  our  wrong  the  greater  in  sub- 
stituting ourselves  as  the  sovereign  in  lieu  of  the  rightful  one. 
How  can  a  government  cede  a  territory  by  a  treaty  without 
possessing  the  powers  to  carry  that  treaty  into  execution  ? 
But  this  very  treaty  denies  to  the  government  such  powers  be- 
cause it  annihilates  it  at  the  very  moment  that  it  should  begin 
to  exercise  them.  Such  an  anomaly  was  never  before  heard 
of  in  political  history.  We  can  recollect  examples  of  States 
acquired  by  conquest,  and  by  negotiation,  but  we  do  not  re- 
member one  which  resolved  itself  by  its  own  act  into  its  orig- 
inal element,  the  territory  upon  which  it  is  founded. 

Let  us  put  the  case  in  still  another  light.  If  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  can  treat  with  Texas'  respecting  a 
union  of  the  two  countries,  in  any  shape  whatever  it  may 
please  to  put  it,  it  is  equally  able  to  treat  with  any  other  na- 
tion under  the  sun.  Supposing,  then,  that  in  the  heat  of  a 
revolution  like  that  of  France,  before  the  period  of  its  wild 
excesses,  the  national  assembly  of  that  or  any  other  Euro- 
pean people  sbould  send  over  ambassadors  to  the  United 
States,  to  treat  respecting  a  union  of  the  two  countries.  Sup- 
posing that  a  President  should  be  found  ready  to  negotiate  with 
them,  and  a  Legislature,  one  or  both  branches,  prepared  to 
sanction  a  treaty  thus  made.  Supposing  that  one  of  the 
conditions  should  be  the  transfer  of  the  seat  of  government  of 
the  two  countries  to  some  common  centre,  somewhere  on  an 
island,  if  such  could  be  found,  situated  half-way  between 
them.  Supposing  that  John  Tyler,  like  Samuel  Houston, 
should  consent  to  have  his  power  annihilated,  and  a  French 
President  over  the  two  countries  set  over  his  head.  Would 
it  then  be  pretended  by  any  human  being  that  either  the  Pre- 
sident or  Congress  would  have  been  exercising  powers  grant- 
ed under  the  constitution  ?  Yet  it  would  be  difficult  to  deny 
that  each  of  these  powers  is  in  the  constitution,  if  it  be  once 
granted  that  Texas  can  be  admitted  by  treaty.  It  may  be 
objected  to  us,  that  we  are  putting  an  extreme  case.  But  in 
this  instance  an  extreme  case  is  only  necessary  to  show,  in  a 
still  more  glaring  light,  the  character  of  a  constitutional  doc- 
trine. If  the  President  and  Congress  can  treat  with  a  for- 
eign power  in  such  a  manner  as  to  disturb  all  the  existing  re- 
lations between  the  States,  by  the  introduction  of  that  for- 
eign power  into  the  government  without  the  consent  of  the 
people  of  those  States,  then,  as  Mr.  Jefferson  most  truly 
observes,  in  another  passage  of  the  letter  already  quoted, 
"  We  have  no  constitution."  Any  thing  and  every  thing 
may  be  done,  which  the  caprice,   or  the  ambition,  or  tha 


31 

spirit  of  intrigue  of  a  few  men  in  Washington  may  prompt 
them  to  do,  under  the  form  of  a  solemn  treaty. 

It  is,  then,  obvious  that  there  is  a  broad  line  of  distinction 
marked  out,  between  the  cession  by  a  government  of  an  in- 
dependent State  of  a  part  of  its  territory  not  having  a  govern- 
ment, to  the  United  States,  by  a  treaty,  and  the  formation  of 
a  new  social  compact  between  the  people  living  under  two 
distinct  forms  of  government,  by  the  force  of  such  an  in- 
strument. In  the  former  class  may  be  ranked  the  Louisiana 
and  Florida  treaties,  and  the  late  treaty  of  Washington, 
of  which  Mr.  Walker  tries  to  make  use  as  a  precedent. 
Under  the  latter  class  must  be  ranked  every  project  of  a 
treaty  Hke  the  one  proposed  to  be  made  with  Texas.  Whilst 
it  may  be  a  fair  question  whether  treaties  of  the  former  kind 
may  not  be  made,  so  long  as  they  only  have  the  effect  of  en- 
larging the  territory  of  the  Union,  it  seems  to  us  that  not  the 
shadow  of  a  doubt  can  be  thrown  upon  our  position  respecting 
the  latter.  A  treaty  of  this  kind  seems  to  us  at  war  with 
every  theory  of  republicanism  which  has  been  ever  acknowl- 
edged in  America.  It  is  imposing  upon  the  people  of  the 
States  new  conditions,  without  their  consent  or  privity.  It 
is,  in  point  of  fact,  a  revolution.  After  such  an  event,  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  no  longer  can  be  regarded 
as  the  rule  of  action,  but  the  President,  by  virtue  of  his  pat- 
ronage and  the  treaty-making  power,  becomes  a  more  abso- 
lute sovereign  than  half  of  the  monarchs  of  Europe. 

So  obvious  and  palpable  is  the  stretch  of  power  which  this 
doctrine  of  annexing  a  foreign  country,  by  the  mere  force  of  a 
treaty,  assumes  for  the  general  government,  that  it  is  wonder- 
ful it  should  ever  have  found  a  single  advocate  among  those 
who  have  always  professed  a  wish  to  restrain  its  tendencies 
to  consolidation  by  all  possible  means.  They  who  object  to 
duties  for  the  protection  of  home  manufactures,  or  to  a  na- 
tional bank,  from  constitutional  scruples,  and  yet  concede 
this  great  power,  do  indeed  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a 
camel.  Yet,  if  we  inquire  into  the  reason  which  prompts  to 
such  very  opposite  views  of  the  powers  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment in  the  same  men,  we  must  come  back  to  the  ground 
of  the  Massachusetts  resolutions.  Whatever  road  we  may 
take  in  public  affairs,  whatever  question  we  may  propose,  they 
all  terminate  in  the  same  point.  The  maintenance  of  the 
property  representation  is  the  pole  star  by  which  the  course 
of  the  ship  of  state  is  steered.  Is  it  necessary  to  deny  the 
existence  of  a  power  in  the  constitution  ?  It  is,  because  it  is 
feared  that  an  unequal  benefit  may  be  derived  from  its  use  by 
the  Free    States.     Is  it  necessary,  on  the  contrary,  to  strain 


32 


that  instrument  beyond  all  reasonable  limits  ?  It  is,  because 
the  benefit  is  all  to  accrue  to  the  small  number  who  wish  to 
hold  a  perpetuity  of  property  in  man,  and  through  that  the 
control  which  they  have  acquired  over  the  affairs  of  the 
Union. 

These  are  solemn  truths.  They  are  not  told  for  the  sake 
of  exciting  discontent  at  our  existing  institutions,  but  for  the 
sake  of  rousing  the  people,  as  far  as  possible,  to  maintain 
them  inviolate.  Is  it  possible,  that  this  great  republic  should 
suffer  itself  long  to  be  led  by  such  blind  guides,  as  the  advo- 
cates of  slavery,  or  their  allies  among  the  political  managers 
of  the  Free  States  ?  We  cannot  yet  believe  that  it  is.  Let 
slavery  remain  a  local  matter  within  the  limits  of  those  States 
in  which  it  is  established,  and  we  know  of  nothing  to  create 
cause  of  uneasiness.  But  when  it  threatens  to  raise  its  fear- 
ful head  over  the  whole  land,  when  it  bends  the  policy  of  the 
government  to  subserve  its  own  selfish  purposes,  when  it  un- 
dertakes completely  to  alter  the  relations  between  the  States, 
established  by  their  frame  of  government,  and  to  overawe  the 
spirit  of  liberty,  then  is  the  time  to  cry  aloud,  and  spare  not. 
There  must  be  some  favorable  change  in  a  few  years,  or  else 
the  great  objects  for  which  the  constitution  was  adopted,  will 
disappear  from  sight,  and  it  will  cease  to  be  the  pride  and  the 
boast  of  all  intelligent  Americans. 

Mr.  Walker,  whose  pamphlet  is  understood  to  be  the  text- 
book of  the  friends  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  maintains  that 
there  are  three  ways  of  arriving  at  his  object  in  a  constitu- 
tional manner.  The  first  is  by  virtue  of  the  treaty-making 
power.  This  has  already  been  considered.  The  second  is, 
by  force  of  the  first  clause  of  the  third  section  of  the  fourth 
article,  which  is  in  these  words  : — 

New  States  may  be  admitted  by  the  Congress  into  this  Union ;  but  no 
new  Slate  shall  be  formed  or  erected  within  the  jurisdiction  of  any  other 
State,  nor  any  State  be  formed  by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  States,  or 
parts  of  States,  without  the  consent  of  the  Legislatures  of  the  States,  as 
well  as  of  the  Congress. 

Mr.  Walker  maintains  that  this  is  an  unlimited  grant  of  pow- 
er to  the  Congress.  Hence  that  a  simple  act  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, passed  by  a  bare  majority  in  each  branch,  is  all  that  is  ne- 
cessary to  admit  a  foreign  State,  no  matter  what, — Mexico, 
Russia,  or  even  the  Celestial  Empire,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
globe,  into  the  Union. 

This  construction,  coming,  as  it  does,  from  a  gentleman 
who  could  not  see  in  the  same  instrument  from  which  he  de- 
rives this  power,  a  sufficient  authority  to  incorporate  a  nation- 


S3 

al  bank,  is  certainly  calculated  to  amaze  reasonable  observers 
of  political  affairs.  There  are  persons,  even  in  tlie  free 
States,  who  cannot  perceive  the  inconsistency  involved  in 
supporting  these  two  propositions,  under  any  single  theory 
that  has  ever  yet  been  maintained  of  our  federal  system. 
Neither  are  they  immediately  aware  of  the  singular  use  now 
for  the  first  time  made  of  a  provision  of  the  constitution,  ori- 
ginally incorporated  into  it  for  a  very  different  purpose. 
One  of  the  modes  by  which  the  gentlemen  who  represent 
property  in  man  succeed  in  pushing  their  system  into  opera- 
tion is,  through  the  bold  manner  in  which  they  advance  their 
propositions.  We  have  heard  persons  doubt  whether  a 
good  answer  could  be  made  to  this,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  had  no  belief  whatever  in  its  soundness.  Such  things 
make  us  fear  sometimes  that  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  has 
already  evaporated  under  the  scorching  influences  of  slavery, 
and  nothing  is  left  to  us  but  the  residuum  of  forms.  Let  us 
look  at  the  subject  calmly  for  a  moment,  and  see  whether 
there  is  one  atom  of  foundation  for  any  of  these  judgements. 
The  provision  of  the  constitution  is,  that  '•'•  new  States  may 
be  admitted  by  Congress  into  this  Union."  Does  Mr. 
Walker  mean,  under  this  clause,  to  insist  that  old  States  shall 
also  be  included  .''  A  State,  according  to  the  best  authori- 
ties, is  defined  to  be  a  Republic  or  Commonwealth.  In  or- 
der to  the  full  comprehension  of  the  phrase  "New  States," 
we  must  therefore  infer  that  some  other  communities  were  in- 
tended than  those  in  which  the  forms  of  government  had  been 
long  established.  This  inference  is  proved  to  be  perfectly 
just,  by  the  very  next  sentence,  which  makes  certain  restric- 
tions to  the  power  already  granted  in  that  preceding,  all  of 
which  have  reference  to  the  fact  that  the  States  proposed  to 
be  admitted  are  new,  that  is,  just  constituted.  "  But  no  new 
State,"  it  says,  ''shall  he  formed  or  erected  within  the  juris- 
diction of  any  other  State,  nor  any  State  be  formed  by  the 
junction  of  two  or  more  States  or  parts  of  States  without 
the  consent  of  the  Legislatures  of  the  States  concerned,  as 
well  as  of  the  Congress."  It  is,  then,  to  the  formation  or  erec- 
tion of  new  States  that  the  whole  paragraph  applies — to  the 
creation  of  new  social  communities,  and  not  to  the  recogni- 
tion of  old  ones.  It  was  designed  to  provide  for  the  incor- 
poration of  those  societies  which  were  to  rise  up  in  the  for- 
ests of  the  West,  on  the  territories  originally  comprised  with- 
in the  charters  of  certain  colonies,  but  ceded  by  them  to  the 
United  States  before  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  and  not 
for  the  indefinite  recognition  of  every  foreign  government  at 
the  mere  will  of  the  Congress,  whenever  it  should  please 

5 


3$ 


such  a  government  to  be  called  one  of  the  United  States. 
The  words  of  the  article  can  bear  no  other  construction  with- 
out positive  violence  to  their  meaning.  The  spirit  of  the 
whole  instrument  is  still  more  adverse  to  Mr.  Walker's  idea, 
for  it  breathes  throughout  a  government  of  limited  powers  for 
the  perpetuation  of  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  the  people  who 
adopted  it  and  to  their  posterity.  But  what  limit  can  be  set 
to  the  powers  granted  to  the  Congress,  if  it  once  be  granted 
that  the  act  of  a  bare  majority  can  at  any  time  introduce  new 
elements  into  the  social  system,  the  character  of  which  the 
people  of  the  States  can  as  little  regulate  as  they  can  foresee  ? 
Luckily,  on  this  point,  we  are  not  left  without  the  means 
of  knowing  what  was  the  intent  of  the  framers  of  the  consti- 
tution in  adopting  the  article  in  question.  We  find  from  Mr. 
Madison's  report  of  the  debates  had  in  the  convention,  that 
the  view  we  have  taken  of  it  is  the  correct  one.  The  arti- 
cle was  originally  designed  to  meet  the  contingency  that  was 
foreseen  as  likely  to  happen  of  the  formation  of  new  States 
within  the  limits  of  the  territory  of  the  Union.  Among  the 
propositions  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Edmund  Randolph  at 
the  outset,  which  propositions  are  well  known  to  have  em- 
braced the  principles  ultimately  incorporated  into  the  consti- 
tution, the  tenth  runs  in  the  following  words  : — 

Resolved,  That  provision  ought  to  be  made  for  the  admission  of  States 
lawfully  arising  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  whether  from  a  vol- 
untary junction  of  government  and  territory,  or  otherwise,  with  the  con- 
sent of  a  number  of  voices  in  the  JNational  Legislature  less  than  the 
whole. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  what  the  intention  was  in  introduc- 
ing this  proposition  at  all.  It  was  not  to  enlarge  the  system 
by  the  incorporation  into  it  of  foreign  States,  but  to  open  a 
way  for  the  preservation  of  the  existing  territorial  rights  of 
the  Union,  without  the  necessity  of  including  them  within  the 
limits  of  the  existing  States.  This  would  have  been  incon- 
venient, by  reviving  the  difficult  questions  that  had  once 
been  settled  by  the  voluntary  act  of  the  States,  claiming  the 
territories  at  the  westward,  which  had  been  induced  to  sur- 
render their  claims  for  the  common  good.  '^J'he  States  to 
be  admitted  were  only  those  which  might  lawfully  arise  within 
the  limits  of  the  United  States.  There  is  no  ambiguity  in 
this  language,  whatever.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  in  this 
very  language  the  tenth  proposition  of  Mr.  Randolph  was  on 
the  5ih  of  June,  1787,  adopted  by  the  convention,  and  made 
the  basis  of  the  article  upon  the  subject.  In  this  form,  it, 
together  with  the  rest  of  the  propositions  that  had  been 
agreed  to,  was  referred  to  the  committee  of  detail,  appointed 


35 

on  the  24th  of  July,  with  powers  to  report  a  constitution  in 
form.  At  the  same  time,  however,  the  independent  proposi- 
tions that  had  then  been  offered  by  Mr.  Charles  Pinckney 
and  Mr.  Patterson,  were  referred  to  the  same  committee, 
probably  with  a  view  to  give  that  committee  full  powers  to 
make  such  modifications  in  the  language  of  the  new  instru- 
ment as  might  appear  advisable  and  best,  after  a  full  compar- 
ison of  all  the  plans  with  each  other.  It  must  be  noted,  that 
Mr.  Pinckney 's  article  14th,  runs  in  the  following  words  : — 

The  Legislature  shall  have  power  to  admit  ntw  States  into  the  Union, 
on  the  same  terms  with  the  original  States;  provided  two-thirds  of  the 
members  present  in  both  Houses  agree. 

Mr.  Patterson's  was  still  more  concise. 

Resolved^  That  provision  be  made  for  the  admission  of  new  States  into 
the  Union. 

Now,  by  a  comparison  of  these  two  propositions  with  that 
of  Mr.  Randolph,  it  will  immediately  be  perceived  that  the 
former  intends  to  provide  for  ihe  same  contingency  with  the 
latter,  and  that  the  difference  is  only  in  the  shorter  form  of 
expressing  the  same  idea.  Mr.  Randolph  proposed,  that 
"provision  ought  to  be  made  for  the  admission  of  States  law- 
fully arising  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States.'^^  The 
other  two  gentlemen  describe  the  same  communities  as  "newj 
States,"  and  cut  off  the  circumlocution.  Had  not  this  been 
their  motive,  how  much  easier  would  it  have  been  to  have 
said  other  States,  or  foreign  States,  as  Mr.  Sherman  actually 
did  in  a  proposition  we  shall  presently  notice.  This  would 
indeed  have  expressed  the  idea  now  advanced  by  Mr.  Walk- 
er, but  it  was  not  the  one  which  they  intended  to  express. 
They  were  looking  to  the  Western  Territory  with  as  single 
an  eye  as  Mr.  Randolph. 

We  have  stated  these  facts,  to  show  how  the  word  *'new" 
came  to  be  incorporated  into  the  present  article  of  the  consti- 
tution. This  and  the  provision  requiring  a  two-thirds  vote 
were  borrowed  by  the  committee  of  detail,  from  the  propo- 
sitions of  Messrs.  Pinckney  and  Patterson,  in  order  fully  to 
carry  out  the  idea  presented  by  Mr.  Randolph.  The  seven- 
teenth article,  as  reported  by  them  on  the  sixth  of  August,  is 
in  the  following  words  : — 

New  States  lawfully  constituted  or  established  within  the  limits  of  the 
United  States  may  be  admitted,  by  the  Legislature,  into  this  govern- 
ment; but  to  such  admission  the  consent  of  two  thirds  of  the  members 
present  in  each  house  shall  be  necessary.  If  a  new  State  shall  arise 
within  the  limits  of  any  of  the  present  Stateo,  the  consent  of  the  Legisla- 
tures of  such  States  shall  be  also  necessary  to  its  admission.  If  the  ad- 
mission be  consented  to,  the  new  State  shall  be  admitted  on  the  same 
terms  with  the  original  States.  But  the  Legislature  may  make  condi- 
tions with  the  new  States,  concerning  the  public  debt  which  shall  then 
be  subsisting. 


36 

It  will  be  perceived  that  this  form  of  the  article  only  made 
still  more  striking  the  intention  of  the  framers  of  the  constitu- 
tion to  limit  its  application  to  communities  which  might  there- 
after be  formed  within  the  limits  of  the  Union.  In  this  view 
il  is,  that  the  incorporation  into  it  of  the  word  ''new,"  which 
was  not  in  Mr.  Randolph's  original  proposition,  is  of  great 
consequence.  We  now  come  to  consider  the  reasons  why 
this  proposition,  as  reported  by  the  committee  of  detail,  was 
subsequently  modified  into  the  shape  in  which  it  now  stands. 
We  think  it.  can  be  made  evident  that  the  change  was  not  de- 
signed to  favor  any  projects  of  enlargement  of  the  Union,  to 
say  the  least  of  it.  It  appears  that  on  the  29th  of  August, 
when  the  article  came  before  the  convention  for  consid- 
eration, Mr.  Gouverneur  Morris  objected  to  it  in  its  new 
shape,  because  it  made  the  admission  of  the  Western  States 
upon  equal  terms  with  the  original  States,  imperative,  with 
a  single  exception,  relative  to  the  public  debt  then  subsisting. 
"He  did  not  wish  to  throw  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
Western  country."  These  are  his  words,  as  reported  by 
Mr.  Madison.  Hence  it  is  to  be  inferred,  that  he  wished  to 
retain,  in  the  hands  of  the  Congress,  the  ability  to  make  con- 
ditions of  admission  even  to  those  new  communities  about  to 
be  formed  within  the  limits  of  the  Union ;  the  very  principle 
contended  for,  by  the  Northern  States,  it  should  be  observed, 
at  the  time  of  the  admission  of  Missouri.  Not  being  satis- 
fied with  the  article  as  it  stood,  he  proposed  the  following  as 
a  substitute : — 

JYew  States  may  be  admitted  by  the  Legislature  into  the  Union  ;  but 
no  new  States  shall  be  erected  within  the  limits  of  any  of  the  present 
States,  without  the  consent  of  the  Legislature  of  such  State,  as  well  as 
of  the  general  Legislature. 

And  this  substitute  being  nearly  the  same  thing  with  the 
article,  as  it  actually  stands,  was  adopted,  six  States  voting 
in  favor,  and  five  against  it. 

The  position  of  Vermont,  a  territory  at  that  time  neither 
in  nor  out  of  the  Union,  and  seeking  to  be  admitted  without 
the  necessity  of  securing  the  consent  of  New  York,  appears 
to  have  had  a  great  effect  upon  the  form  in  which  this  arti- 
cle was  ultimately  adopted.  Luckily,  her  situation  has  given 
us  a  strong  proof  of  a  cumulative  character  how  much  im- 
portance the  framers  of  the  constitution  attached  to  the  word 
"newj,"  as  joined  to  "States,"  in  the  connexion  of  this  ar- 
ticle. Mr.  Sherman  moved  the  following  substitute,  which 
distinctly  covers  the  ground  assumed  by  Mr.  Walker,  in  his 
pamphlet : — 

The  Legislature  shall  have  power  to  admit  other  States  into  the  Union  ; 
and  new  States  to  be  formed  by  the  division  or  junction  of  States  now 
in  the  Union,  with  the  consent  of  the  Legislature  of  such  States. 


37 

This  substitute  adopts  the  word  "  other'^^  instead  of  the 
word  "new,"  and,  still  more  significantly,  it  opposes  it  to  the 
word  "  new"  that  follows,  as  applied  to  the  creation  of  States 
to  be  formed  by  dividing  or  uniting  existing  States.  It  can, 
therefore,  hardly  be  doubted,  that  this  was  considered  as  test- 
ing the  sense  of  the  convention  upon  the  article  as  it  stands. 
The  substitute  was  designed  to  include  a  power  of  admitting 
other  States,  whether  old  or  new.  The  article,  as  it  stands, 
confined  itself  to  future  communities  about  to  be  formed  in 
the  forests  of  the  West.  How  much  force  is  then  due  to  the 
decision  of  the  convention  which  rejected  the  substitute,  six 
States  voting  in  the  negative,  to  five  in  the  affirmative,  and 
then  adopted  the  article  as  proposed  by  Mr.  Morris,  eight 
States  voting  in  favor,  and  three  against  it  ! 

We  are  conscious  how  very  dry  all  merely  constitutional 
questions  are  to  the  great  mass  of  readers.  We  have,  there- 
fore, endeavored  to  condense  this  history  much  more  than  is 
altogether  to  the  advantage  of  the  argument.  So  conclusive, 
however,  does  the  view  of  it  which  we  have  taken  seem  to  us 
that  we  are  willing  to  let  it  go  even  in  its  present  shape,  with- 
out any  further  amplification.  We  trust,  that  after  this  the 
public  will  no  longer  listen  to  any  pretence  of  power  to  be 
derived  under  this  article,  at  least,  for  the  annexation  of  a 
foreign  State  to  the  Union.  If  the  act  is  to  be  done  at  all,  it 
is  surely  not  to  be  done  by  men  sworn  to  support  the  consti- 
tution, in  the  face  of  a  distinct  declaration  of  its  sense,  by 
those  who  were  engaged  in  Its  construction. 

The  last  of  the  three  modes  by  which  Mr.  Walker  thinks 
that  the  annexation  may  be  effected,  is  through  the  act  of  any 
one  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  with  the  sanction  of  Con- 
gress. He  derives  this  remarkable  power  not  from  any 
direct  authority  given  in  the  constitution,  but  by  implication 
from  that  clause  of  the  tenth  section  of  the  first  article,  which 
forbids  any  State  from  entering  into  any  agreement  or  com- 
pact with  another  State,  or  with  a  foreign  power,  without 
having  the  consent  of  Congress  thereto.  But  if  this  consent 
can  be  obtained,  he  thinks  the  power  to  make  such  a  com- 
pact remains  in  the  States  unaffected  by  the  prohibition,  and 
that  under  cover  of  these  words  '^  compact  or  agreement," 
any  one  of  them  may,  at  its  pleasure,  merge  into  itself,  or  be 
merged  into  any  foreign  State. 

This  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  a  new  view  of  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States.  So  far  as  the  annexation  of  Texas  is 
concerned,  we  regard  it  as  presenting  the  least  dangerous 
mode  of  effecting  it  which  has  yet  been  suggested  ;  and  could 


38 

we  for  a  moment  be  brought  to  assent  to  the  validity  of  the 
reasoning  by  which  it  is  pressed,  we  are  not  sure  that  we 
should  be  afraid  of  running  the  risk  of  its  happening  by  this 
means.  But,  were  the  scheme  practicable, — were  the  State 
of  Louisiana  or  of  Arkansas  willing  to  sink  its  present  organ- 
ization, for  the  purpose  of  embracing  Texas  within  its  limits, 
no  one  knows  better  than  Mr.  Walker,  that  the  main  object 
of  the  whole  undertaking  would  thereby  be  defeated.  The 
purpose  of  annexing  Texas,  is  to  create  out  of  it  several  new 
States,  each  of  which  shall  have  the  benefit  of  the  rule  of 
federal  representation,  as  well  in  the  Senate  as  in  the  House 
of  Representatives.  And  through  this  division  into  States, 
the  object  is  to  gain  just  so  many  more  electoral  votes  for 
President  and  Vice-President,  with  which  to  defend  the  rep- 
resentation of  property  in  man,  as  there  would  be  new  mem- 
bers of  the  Senate  thus  obtained.  Now,  were  Texas  incor- 
porated into  Louisiana  or  Arkansas,  no  more  Senators  could 
be  made  than  now  exist ;  and  the  struggle  against  Wisconsin 
and  Iowa,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  Western  Territory  would 
remain  to  be  made  as  now.  The  Senate  is,  after  all,  the 
stronghold  of  property  representation  in  this  government,  be- 
cause there,  the  inequality  between  the  increase  of  the  free 
and  the  slave  Slates  does  not  operate  to  restore  the  balance 
in  favor  of  the  former,  as  it  does  in  the  popular  branch,  and 
in  the  electoral  colleges.  Nothing  can  shake  that  power  in 
the  Senate,  if  it  be  once  fortified  by  the  addition  of  Texas  as 
a  territory.  But  its  union  with  one  of  the  existing  States 
would  not  strengthen  it  in  that  body  materially.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  avoid  the  conviction,  that  this  third  mode  of  annex- 
ing Texas  to  the  Union  is  not  intended  to  be  seriously  re- 
commended, and  that  it  has  rather  been  thrown  out  as  a  pos- 
sibility, in  case  of  the  failure  of  the  other  two,  than  with  any 
serious  belief  that  it  could  be  made  acceptable,  either  to  the 
State  which  would  be  swallowed  up  in  the  operation,  or  to 
the  interest  ostensibly  to  be  promoted  by  it. 

But,  even  were  it  otherwise — were  the  whole  of  the  party 
in  favor  of  annexation  to  press  it  as  a  proper  measure,  we 
must  maintain  that  the  scheme  is  directly  and  palpably  at  war 
with  existing  provisions  of  the  constitution,  which  absolutely 
forbid  every  attempt  of  the  kind.  Mr.  Walker,  in  his  zeal 
for  annexation,  appears  ta  have  looked  only  at  the  last  clause 
of  the  tenth  section,  under  which  he  derives  his  power,  and 
to  have  neglected  the  first.  Yet,  what  are  the  words  of  the 
first  .''     Are  they  not  these  ? 

"  No  State  shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  con- 
federation." 


89 

The  prohibition  is  absolute.  No  State  can  even  set  on 
foot  a  negotiation  with  Texas,  without  at  once  violating  her 
obligations  to  the  Union.  Indeed,  how  could  it  be  other- 
wise ?  What  power  of  control  would  there  be  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  over  the  foreign  relations  of  the 
country,  if  this  clause  were  not  in  the  constitution  ?  The 
provision  which  follows  forbidding  the  States  to  enter  into  any- 
compact  or  agreement  with  anotlier  State  or  with  a  foreign 
power,  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  manifestly  has  refer- 
ence to  certain  cases  of  extreme  necessity  ;  it  by  no  means 
conflicts  with  the  clause  which  we  have  quoted.  This  may 
easily  be  seen  by  noting  the  context,  much  of  which  has  ref- 
erence only  to  a  state  of  war.  "  No  State,"  It  says,  "  shall 
without  the  consent  of  Congress,  lay  any  duty  of  tonnage, 
keep  troops  or  ships  of  war  in  time  of  peace,  enter  into  any 
agreement  or  compact  with  another  State  or  a  foreign  pow- 
er, or  engage  in  war  unless  actually  invaded  or  in  such  immi- 
nent danger  as  will  not  admit  of  delay."  Some  of  these 
powers  may  not  be  exercised  at  all  excepting  by  consent  of 
Congress,  and  others  may  be  exercised  upon  certain  contin- 
gencies of  war,  without  that  consent,  but  they  are  all  of  a 
character  which  cannot  and  ought  not  to  be  resorted  to  ex- 
cepting in  cases  in  which  it  is  clear  that  the  States  must 
do  so  for  some  very  strong  and  peculiar  reason.  This 
seems  to  be  the  cause  of  the  difierence  of  the  language  used 
in  this  and  in  the  first  clause  of  the  same  section  already 
quoted.  "  No  State  shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or 
confederation"  whatever,  upon  any  terms,  with  or  without 
the  consent  of  Congress — but  it  may,  with  such  consent,  enter 
into  "  a  compact  or  agreement"  with  another  State  or  a  for- 
eign power,  that  is,  some  arrangement  justified  by  extreme 
necessity,  either  for  mutual  defence  or  for  protection,  mak- 
ing it  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  of  action,  temporary 
in  its  nature,  and  having  no  sort  of  reference  to  plans  of 
enlargement  or  of  dominion  in  time  of  peace,  like  that  which 
Mr.  Walker  has  attempted  to  introduce  under  the  words. 

But  apparently  aware  that  rjone  of  the  three  modes  thus 
suggested  are  free  from  the  difficulties  which  we  have  endea- 
vored to  point  out,  this  gentleman  is  ready,  with  a  new  and 
more  general  position,  to  meet  the  contingency  of  his  fail- 
ure to  prove  them  constitutional.  He  maintains,  though  it 
must  be  confessed,  in  language  somewhat  ambiguous,  the  ex- 
istence of  a  reserved  right  in  any  State,  to  extend  her  terri- 
tory as  far  as  she  pleases,  without  regard  to  the  constitution. 
As  we  desire  not  to  misrepresent  him  on  so  delicate  a  point, 
we  will  copy  his  own  words. 


40 


"  But,"  he  says,  "  if  it  be  otherwise,  and  the  constitution  only  applies 
to  territories  then  attached  to  the  Union,  and  delegates  no  power  for 
the  acquisition  of  any  other  territory,  nor  prohibits  the  exercise  of  the 
pre-existing  power  of  each  State,  to  extend  her  boundaries,  then  there 
would  remain  in  each  State  the  reserved  right  of  extension,  beyond  the 
control  of  Congress.  I  have  not  asserted  the  existence  of  such  a  right  in 
a  State;  but  if  the  clauses  quoted,  do  net  confer  the  authority  on  Con- 
gress, and  the  re-annexation  is  refused  on  that  ground,  then  the  annex- 
ing power,  as  a  right  to  enlarge  their  boundaries,  would  result  to  any 
one  of  the  States,  and  with  the  consent  of  Texas,  could  be  exercised. 
Perceiving,  then,  what  power  results  to  the  States,  from  the  denial  of  the 
power  of  annexation  by  Congress,  let  us  agitate  no  such  question  in  ad- 
vance of  a  denial  of  its  own  authority  by  Congress,  but  discuss  the  ques- 
tion on  its  merits  alone." 

It  is  quite  well  for  Mr.  Walker,  that  he  does  not  assert 
the  existence  of  the  right  here  spoken  of — and  that,  for  the 
very  good  reason,  that  no  such  right  can,  by  any  possibility, 
be  made  to  consist  with  the  maintenance  of  the  relative  po- 
sition of  the  States,  under  the  constitution.  If  a  right  to 
enlarge  her  boundaries,  can  result  to  one  of  the  States, 
by  the  annexing  power,  it  does  equally  to  all.  Rhode  Island 
and  Delaware  have  far  more  reasonable  ground  for  the  exer- 
cise of  it,  than  either  Louisiana  or  Arkansas.  The  only 
question  for  consideration  then  would  be,  where  the  land 
should  be  found,  to  which  to  apply  this  annexing  power.  It 
cannot  be  found  within  the  territory  of  the  Union,  because 
that  is  regarded  as  common  property  of  all  the  States. 
Neither  can  it  be  found  without  that  territory,  because  the 
consent  of  the  owners  must  then  be  obtained,  these  owners 
being  foreign  States.  This  can  only  be  done  by  negotiation 
and  treaty.  And  the  constitution  expressly  declares,  as  we 
have  already  shown,  that  "No  State  shall  enter  into  any 
treaty."  The  original  object  of  this  provision  is  well  under- 
stood. If  it  had  not  existed,  the  poor  Indians  would  have 
been  stripped  of  all  their  lands,  by  the  States,  long  before 
the  United  States  did  it  for  them.  The  tenth  section  of  the 
first  article  contains  an  enumeration  of  the  powers  denied  to 
the  States,  and  the  treaty-making  power  is  one  of  them. 
Can  any  thing  in  language  be  plainer  }  And  yet  there  is  an 
indistinct  intimation  in  this  passage,  by  Mr.  Walker,  of  a 
reserved  right,  which  looks  so  much  to  us  like  a  threat,  that 
"if  we  cannot  do  this  thing  one  way,  we  will  another — if  we 
cannot  do  it  constitutionally,  we  will  do  it  whether  or  no," 
that  it  needs  explanation.  Now  we  have  never  for  a  moment 
doubted,  that  there  was  a  disposition  in  some  quarters,  to  vi- 
olate the  constitution,  rather  than  to  fail  of  securing  Texas 
— but  we  scarcely  expected  to  find  a  Senator  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  even  hint  at  such  a  thing.  We  hope  we  have 
misconceived  his  meaning  in  this  instance.     But  if  we  have 


41 

not,  and  this  doctrine  is  to  be  acted  on,  what  is  the  con- 
stitution worth  ?  Is  every  barrier  to  be  broken  down  which 
prevents  the  unhmited  exercise  of  power  by  those  who  will 
perpetuate  their  own  privileges,  at  the  expense  of  those  of 
the  nation  ?  Are  there  to  be  no  rights  secured,  excepting 
those  of  unequal  representation  ? 

But  if  Mr.  Walker  and  his  friends  turn  round  upon  us  and 
ask  us  whether,  under  no  circumstances  whatever,  we  would 
consent  to  the  junction  of  Texas  with  the  United  States, 
and  whether  some  attention  is  not  due  to  the  argument  drawn 
from  the  too  great  proximity  of  the  Sabine  to  the  city  of  New 
Orleans,  we  are  perfectly  ready  to  answer  these  questions. 
The  only  legitimate  method  of  deciding  the  matter  is,  by  an 
appeal  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  who  agreed  to  the 
constitution  as  it  is.  Let  Mr.  Walker,  propose  an  amend- 
ment to  that  constitution  which  shall  cover  this  question  ; 
let  that  amendment  be  approved  by  the  requisite  number, 
two-thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  and  ratified  by  the 
Legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the  several  States,  and  then 
Texas  may  become  a  part  of  the  United  States.  We  will 
venture  to  go  even  a  step  further  to  meet  him — we  will  our- 
selves advocate  the  annexation  of  Texas  in  the  manner 
here  described,  provided  only  that  the  same  amendment 
which  shall  authorize  it  be  made  to  include  the  substance 
of  the  Massachusetts  resolutions.  Not  that  we  desire  to 
be  understood  as  favoring  the  further  acquisition  of  terri- 
tory to  the  Union,  in  any  shape,  or  that  we  wave  any  of  the 
objections  we  have  made  to  the  admission  of  Texas.  But 
we  should  be  willing  to  put  up  with  something  in  the  way 
of  evil  for  the  sake  of  securing  a  greater  good.  And  holding 
as  we  do  the  most  sincere  and  deliberate  conviction,  that  the 
compromise  of  the  constitution  which  concedes  the  right  of 
representation  of  property  in  man  has  been,  is,  and  will  be,  if 
continued,  fatal  to  all  the  good  objects  for  which  that  consti- 
tution was  originally  formed  and  that  it  is  degrading  the  United 
States  from  the  high  place  in  the  scale  of  nations  and  in  the 
eyes  of  mankind  which  it  ought  to  fill,  we  would  not  for  our 
own  part  hesitate  to  make  a  small  sacrifice  which  should  re- 
move from  that  instrument  the  greatest  spot  upon  its  beauty. 
Let  Texas  and  the  Massachusetts  resolutions  then  go  out  to- 
gether, and  let  them  take  their  fate  together,  for  weal  or  woe, 
in  the  ratifying  bodies,  as  provided  by  the  constitution.  This 
is  the  only  lawful  mode  of  arriving  at  a  good  result.  Every 
other  that  has  been  proposed,  in  connexion  with  Texas  is 
equivalent  to  a  dissolution  of  the  existing  social  compact, — 
because  it  entirely  subverts  the   original  relations  subsisting 


42 

between  the  people  of  the  several  States  ;  it  subjects  them 
to  the  influence  of  new  parties  to  the  compact,  introduced 
without  their  consent,  and  against  their  will ;  it  arrogates  for 
the  executive  and  legislative  departments  of  the  government 
a  dangerous  power,  never  intended  to  be  granted  to  them  ; 
and  finally,  it  perpetuates  the  privileges  conceded  to  a  few, 
at  the  expense  of  those  advantages  which  the  preamble  to 
the  constitution  declares  it  was  its  purpose  to  secure  to  ail. 

But  there  are  persons  to  be  found  in  the  free  States,  inde- 
pendently of  the  office-holders,  who  now,  chameleon-like, 
always  take  the  color  of  their  master,  and  of  the  speculators 
who  hold  Texas  scrip  or  Texas  lots,  who  affect  to  regret  the 
alternative  which  they  present  to  our  rejection  of  Texas, 
namely,  that  Texas  will  then  fall  to  England.  There  are 
others  who  consider  this  rejection  as  equivalent  to  the  loss  of 
a  great  market  for  our  manufactures.  Mr.  Walker  has  struck 
both  of  these  chords  with  some  effect,  in  his  pamphlet.  He 
has  not  been  sparing  of  appeals  to  the  national  pride,  as  well 
as  to  the  individual  purse.  And  in  every  community  of  free 
persons,  some  will  be  found  to  respond  to  the  one  call,  and 
many  to  the  other.  All  we  beg  of  them  in  this  case  is,  not 
to  suffer  themselves  to  become  dupes.  Surely,  this  new- 
born zeal  in  favor  of  domestic  manufactures  is  somewhat  sur- 
prising, coming  as  it  does  from  men  who  have  uniformly, 
heretofore,  shown  the  most  steadfast  hostility  to  their  protec- 
tion. Surely  this  enmity  to  England  is  rather  singular  in  a 
party  which  has  shown  a  determination,  for  years  back,  to 
make  this  country  tributary  to  her  in  every  deparment  of  in- 
dustry, except  the  raising  of  cotton.  The  only  practical  ef- 
fect of  the  annexation  of  Texas  would  be,  to  give  additional 
strength  to  those  who  are  now  seeking  to  destroy  the  tariff, 
and  to  renew  our  ancient  state  of  dependence  on  Great  Brit- 
ain for  our  manufactures.  For  if  we  look  back  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  past,  do  we  not  see  that  the  interest  which  has 
most  steadily  and  pertinaciously  resisted  the  principle  of  pro- 
tection to  home  manufactures,  has  been  the  cotton  planting 
interest  ?  And  what  is  there  in  Texas  but  cotton  planting  ? 
Who  is  it  that  complains  that  cotton  pays  all  the  revenues  of 
the  government  ?  Is  it  not  South  Carohna  ?  Who  is  it 
that  even  now  makes  the  destruction  of  the  present  tariff  a 
condition  of  adherence  to  the  democratic  party  .''  Is  it  not 
Mr.  .John  C.  Calhoun?  And  do  not  South  Carolina  and 
Mr.  John  C.  Calhoun  now  seek  for  sympathy  and  coopera- 
tion in  the  annexation  of  Texas  ^  Let  no  one,  then,  be  so 
simple  as  to  believe  that  the  manufacturers  of  the  country  will 
be  aided  by  strengthening  the  hands  of  their  bitterest  enemies. 


43 

With  respect  to  the  other  pretence,  that  Texas,  if  rejected 
by  the  United  States,  will  become  a  dependency  of  Great 
Britain,  we  shall  be  ready  to  believe  that  just  as  soon  as  we 
see  the  people  of  Texas  emancipate  their  slaves,  and  not  be- 
fore. And  we  think  this  about  as  probable,  as  that  the  same 
thing  will  be  done  by  the  people  of  Alabama  or  Mississippi. 
As  long  as  cotton  planting  is  profitable,  just  so  long  will  there 
be  a  demand  for  slaves  ;  and  as  long  as  there  is  a  demand  for 
slaves,  just  so  long  will  the  people  of  Texas  stick  to  slavery. 
Great  Britain  neither  can  nor  will  interfere  with  her  any  more 
than  she  does  with  us.  She  may  seek  to  make  favorable 
treaties  with  her  ;  but  what  is  to  prevent  our  doing  likewise  ? 
If  Texas  is  to  be  a  market  for  manufactured  goods,  why  not 
for  ours  as  well  as  for  the  British  ?  New-Orleans  is  a  great 
deal  nearer  to  it  than  Liverpool.  And  our  people  may  be 
trusted  to  make  full  use  of  every  fair  advantage  they  can  ob- 
tain. Our  manufactures  now  go  to  Mexico.  Why  should 
not  they  go  to  a  State  much  less  likely  to  interpose  useless 
and  vexatious  restraints  to  trade  ? 

In  truth,  the  independence  of  Texas  is,  of  all  things,  that 
which  it  is  most  for  the  interest  of  the  Union  to  sustain.  If 
our  government  ever  had  done  such  a  thing,  it  might  almost 
be  advisable  for   it  to   enter  into  nes:otiation   with  Mexico 

o 

and  Great  Britain,  mutually  to  guarantee  that  independence. 
In  this  manner,  she  might  be  made  a  barrier  between  the  tur- 
bulent part  of  our  boundary  population  on  the  Southwest  and 
the  Mexicans.  Even  the  slave-owners  of  the  South  would 
find  it  for  their  advantage  to  have  a  State  on  their  border 
which  would  deter,  by  its  legislation,  their  slaves  from  flight. 
For  were  Texas  to  be  joined  to  the  Union,  we  are  willing  to 
believe  that  Mr.  Walker's  conjecture  would  be  just,  as  to 
the  tendency  of  the  colored  population,  by  escape,  to  diffuse 
itself  over  the  neighboring  free  territory  of  Mexico  ;  but  I 
greatly  doubt  whether  he  or  his  friends  would  then  look  upon 
the  operation  with  the  same  degree  of  complacency  which  he 
now  affects.  If  that  idea  was  thrown  out  as  a  bait  to  the 
friends  of  negro  emancipation,  to  favor  annexation,  we  very 
much  doubt  whether  it  has  caught  a  single  one,  even  of  the 
simplest  of  them. 

But  the  subject  has  so  grown  under  our  hands  that  we  find 
ourselves  compelled  from  fear  of  fatiguing  those  who  may  do 
us  the  favor  to  examine  our  views,  to  abandon  the  intention 
of  pursuing  Mr.  Walker  through  all  his  arguments  in  favor  of 
annexation.  We  are  the  more  ready  to  do  this,  because  we 
find  the  few  that  remain  unnoticed,  are  not  likely  to  carry 
much  weight  in  their  minds.     The  dangers  which  this  gen- 


44 

tleman  predicts  to  follow  to  the  free  States  from  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery,  in  "making  their  vessels  rot  at  the  wharves 
for  want  of  exchangeable  products  to  carry,  and  the  grass  to 
grow  in  the  streets  of  their  cities,"  probably  for  the  same 
reason,  make  a  fine  paragraph  for  declamation,  but  they  only 
betray  the  utter  ignorance  of  the  wriier,  of  the  resources  of 
freemen.  Really,  one  would  be  led  to  imagine,  from  his 
tone,  that  the  world  would  be  undone  if  there  were  no  cotton 
in  Charleston,  Mobile,  Natchez  and  New  Orleans.  All  this  is 
a  bugbear,  much  of  the  same  species  with  the  raw  head  and 
bloody  bones  stories  which  used  to  be  told  previous  to  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  in  the  English  West  Indies. 
Whatever  may  be  the  danger  of  emancipation  to  the  slave 
States,  Mr.  Walker  may  rest  assured  that  the  free  States  ap- 
prehend no  serious  consequence  to  them,  other  than  those 
which  might  follow  the  obligations  which  the  constitution  im- 
poses, of  protecting  their  brethen  against  insurrection  at 
home.  Moreover,  they  would  be  somewhat  at  a  loss  to 
understand  how  this  argument  against  emancipation,  is  to  be 
made  to  reconcile  them  to  the  dangers  of  an  indefinite  exten- 
sion of  the  evils  of  slavery  over  a  large  additional  territory, 
and  a  consequent  increase  of  those  hazards  of  insurrection, 
which  would  call  for  the  interference  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, partially  at  their  expense.  If  Mr.  Walker  thinks  that 
slavery  is  much  better  than  freedom  to  the  black,  then  let 
him  prove  it  to  be  a  measure  of  wisdom  and  philanthropy  to 
reestablish  it  all  over  the  Union.  This  may  suit  that  gen- 
tleman's moral  and  social  theories,  but  it  will  meet  few  sup- 
porters among  the  free. 

So,  too,  with  his  elaborate  argument  drawn  from  the  cen- 
sus of  1840,  to  prove  how  badly  freedom  suits  the  black. 
According  to  Mr.  W^alker,  it  has  a  pecuhar  tendency  to  make 
him  insane,  and  he  thereupon  endeavors  to  show  how  great  a 
proportion  of  free  blacks  become  mad,  as  contrasted  with  the 
whites.  If  this  position  be  true  the  corollary  necessarily  fol- 
lows, that  if  these  blacks  had  been  slaves,  they  would  have 
been  in  their  right  mind.  It  is  their  freedom  that  hath  made 
them  mad.  This  argument,  as  coming  .from  despotic  gov- 
ernments, and  applied  to  the  excesses  of  democracy,  as  ex- 
emplified in  the  French  revolution,  is  not  a  new  one  ;  but 
when  it  comes  from  the  Senator  from  Mississippi,  one  of  the 
chief  lights  of  modern  democracy,  in  1844,  in  the  United 
States,  it  is  calculated  to  raise  a  smile  of  surprise.  The  true 
line  between  sanity  and  insanity  is  among  the  problems  of 
medical  science.  We  will  not  ask  the  Senator  how  far  we  may 
be  justified  in  considering  the  white  people  of  his  State  sane, 


45 

in  their  reasoning  on  the  subject  of  the  moral  obligation  of  a 
Slate  to  fulfil  its  contracts,  for  we  seek  to  revive  no  unpleasant 
recollections.  Let  us  rather  proceed  at  once  to  deny  the  ac- 
curacy of  his  statistics.  It  is  notorious  that  the  census  of 
1840  contains  most  ridipulous  errors,  upon  which  this  theory 
of  the  insanity  of  the  free  black  is  founded.  Mr.  Severance 
of  Maine  has  shown,  in  a  late  speech  in  Congress,  how  in  six 
towns  in  his  State  nineteen  insane  blacks  were  returned, 
whilst  at  the  same  time  the  sum  of  all  the  colored  people  in 
those  same  towns  was  only  one,  and  he  was  probably  sane. 
This  will  serve  as  an  example  of  the  whole  foundation  of  Mr. 
Walker's  argument.  And  such  is  the  sophistry  which  re- 
spectable men  are  not  ashamed  to  use,  when  they  are  com- 
pelled to  defend  slavery  against  the  doctrines  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  It  may  answer  for  the  meridian  of 
Carroll  County,  Kentucky,  to  which  place  Mr.  Walker's 
letter  was  originally  addressed,  but  it  will  not  stand  the  test 
of  a  moment's  scrutiny  in  the  free  States  particularly  when  it 
is  pressed  as  a  justification  of  the  annexation  of  Texas. 

Let  us,  then,  pass  over  all  this  stuff,  as  not  worthy  of  the 
paper  it  would  cost  to  refute  it,  and  come  at  once  to  the  great 
question  that  agitates  all  minds. 

WHAT   OUGHT  NOW  TO   BE   DONE  ? 

It  must  be  admitted  that  public  opinion,  in  the  free  States, 
has  not  settled  down  into  any  definite  channel  on  this  subject. 
We  approach  the  consideration  of  it  with  great  diffidence ; 
not  that  we  do  not  see  a  way  by  which  the  consummation  of 
this  project  might  be  prevented,  but  that  we  fear  the  state  of 
feeling  in  the  country  is  not  sufficiently  concentrated  to  secure 
its  adoption.  Yet  the  late  election  in  the  city  of  New  York 
clearly  shows  what  can  be  done  when  the  people  have  made 
up  their  minds  to  reform  an  existing  evil.  We  will  only  ap- 
ply the  principle  there  involved  on  a  larger  scale,  and  then 
leave  the  decision  of  this  great  question  to  those  in  whose 
hands  it  legitimately  belongs. 

But  first,  it  may  be  as  well  to  state  the  whole  extent  of  the 
evil  which  we  have  to  apprehend,  and  which  we  desire  to 
avoid.  The  annexation  of  Texas  is,  in  itself,  an  evil ;  but  it 
is  by  no  means  the  whole  of  it.  Every  one  in  the  conmmnity 
knows,  that  it  is  carried  on  at  this  time,  in  the  face  of  hostile 
declarations  made  by  Mexico,  a  country  with  which  we  are 
at  peace.  If  Texas  be,  then,  a  part  of ''the  settled  policy 
of  the  government,"  as  Mr  Holmes  says,  so  must  also  be  a 
war  with  Mexico,  which  is  to  follow  it.  Neither  is  this  quite 
all.  At  the  same  time  that  these  hostilities  are  provoked,  a 
spirit  is  manifesting  itself  in  both  Houses  of  Congress,  calcu- 


46 

lated  to  excite  America  against  Great  Britain.  This  has  os- 
tensibly for  its  basis,  the  question  between  the  two  countries 
about  the  boundary  of  the  Oregon  Territory,  but  it  is  strictly 
connected  with  ihe  movement  to  gain  Texas,  and  has  for  its 
real  purpose  the  protection  of  slavery  against  the  effect  of 
pubhc  opinion  in  England,  and  the  other  States  of  Christen- 
dom. Here,  then,  is  the  backward  step  of  liberty  in  the  new 
hemisphere.  Here,  then,  is  the  check  to  further  progress, 
administered  by  the  haughty  spirit  engendered  out  of  slavery, 
and  determined  to  maintain  its  special  privileges  at  every  haz- 
ard. The  settled  policy  of  the  United  States  is  to  be  defi- 
ance of  the  world.  The  black  flag  is  to  go  up  to  the  mast 
head,  whilst  we  seize  Texas  with  one  hand  and  Oregon  with 
the  other,  and  proclaim  our  readiness  to  strike  at  the  city  of 
Mexico,  hereafter.  And  the  free  States  are  to  be  crippled 
in  their  commerce  and  drained  of  their  wealth,  to  sustain  this 
new  crusade  in  support  of  the  new  democratic  principle,  now 
proclaimed  in  America,  that  ''all  men  are  not  born  free  and 
equal,"  whilst  the  slightest  complaint  or  remonstrance  is  to  be 
branded  as  the  heresy  of  men  bribed  and  bought  by  Mexican 
or  British  gold. 

In  order  to  promote  mad  schemes  like  these,  it  was  one  of  -^ 
the  fancies  of  the  person  now  called  the  lamented  Upshur, 
but  whose  loss  as  a  politician,  to  the  country,  is  by  no  means 
to  be  lamented,  whatever  may  be  the  share  of  regret  felt  for 
him  as  a  man  ;  it  was  one  of  the  fancies  of  this  gentleman,  to 
bring  up  the  navy  and  army  of  the  United  States  at  once  to 
a  war  footing,  so  as  to  enable  the  country  as  soon  as  possible 
to  cope  widi  Great  Britain.  Extravagant  appropriations 
were  recommended  In  all  quarters,  by  an  administration  pro- 
fessing 10  follow  the  JefFersonian  model  of  economy,  and  we 
were  about  to  have  a  magnificent  government,  to  give  splen- 
dor to  the  accident  which  was  placed  at  Its  head.  Luckily 
for  the  country,  some  wisdom  and  discretion  was  yet  left 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  which  put  a  stopper  upon 
these  visions  of  glory  for  the  time,  but  the  system  yet  remains, 
and  will  probably  be  still  pressed  in  parts,  as  opportunity  may 
offer,  now  that  it  is  not  probable  it  will  ever  be  accepted  as 
a  whole.  But  it  behoves  the  people  to  be  on  the  watch,  or 
else  that  armament  which  was  made  the  forerunner  of  events, 
will  only  have  changed  its  place  in  the  order  of  time,  and  will 
be  made  necessary  as  a  consequence  of  them. 

But  the  question  recurs — How  shall  we  act  most  effec- 
tively both  for  the  preservation  of  peace  and  against  the  set- 
tled policy  here  marked  out  ? 

There  have  been  suggestions  of  the  expediency  of  extra- 
ordinary popular  meetings.  State  conventions,  and  one  gen- 


47 

eral  convention  of  delegates  from  all  the  Free  States.  As 
expressions  of  opinion,  these  would  perhaps  be  useful,  but  as 
guiding  a  course  of  action,  they  might  possibly  do  more 
harm  than  good.  The  tendency  of  such  assemblages  is  to 
extreme  violence,  which  defeats  its  own  end,  and  there  is  no 
need  of  that  now.  If  the  people  really  feel  the  necessity  of  ex- 
erting themselves,  they  may  do  it  most  effectually  by  con- 
centrating in  the  regular  and  customary  forms.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  do  not,  it  is  useless  for  a  part  to  attempt 
declarations  of  what  they  feel,  which  the  whole  will  not  by 
action  sustain.  The  Free  States  yet  have  the  control  of  this 
matter  in  their  hands.  If  they  say  no,  the  thing  cannot  be 
done.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  show  themselves  willing, 
or  even  lukewarm  and  indifferent,  it  will  be  done.  In  either 
event,  the  responsibility  of  sustaining  or  defeating  the  valua- 
ble purposes  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  rests 
with  them. 

And  in  considering  what  dangers  are  most  to  be  appre- 
hended, we  have  very  reluctantly  been  driven  to  the  conclu- 
sion, that  the  most  imminent  of  them  springs  from  the  cold 
and  temporizing  policy  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  and  his  organiza- 
tion of  political  management  in  the  Free  States.  And  we 
draw  this  inference  not  merely  from  the  fact  that  the  opposi- 
tion to  the  twenty-first  rule  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
made  so  late  in  the  day  by  his  friends,  has  been  basely  aban- 
doned ;  nor  yet  from  the  fact  that  three  Legislatures  of  the 
great  States  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Maine,  friendly 
to  him  have  distinctly  refused  to  express  even  an  opinion 
against  the  policy  of  annexing  Texas  ;  nor  yet  from  the  fact 
that  a  New  Hampshire  Senator,  of  his  party,  has  expressed 
himself  friendly  to  that  policy  ;  nor  yet  from  the  fact  that  the 
influential  press  of  the  democratic  party  in  the  free  States, 
with  a  few  exceptions,  is  either  silent  or  friendly  to  it  ;  nor 
yet  from  the  fact  that  many  of  those  who  are  the  most  violent 
against  Great  Britain  in  Congress,  about  the  Oregon  Territory, 
are  among  the  most  active  of  his  party,  and  are  also  playing 
into  the  hands  of  the  Texans.  We  say  that  we  do  not  draw 
our  inference  from  any  one  of  these  facts  by  itself  but  by  put- 
ting them  all  together  we  deem  it  irresistible.  The  principles 
of  liberty,  the  hopes  of  peace,  and  of  an  honest  administration 
are  not  safely  to  bo  trusted  in  the  hands  of  men  who  make  a 
trade  of  politics — who  bargain  one  thing  against  another — and 
who  are  finally  ready  to  sell  every  thing,  rather  than  not  to 
gain  possession  of  power.  Lukewarmness  now^  at  this  critical 
moment,  in  a  citizen  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  [ree  States, 
is  symptomatic  of  treachery  hereafter.     Let  no  such  men  be 


48 

trusted.  We  are  perfectly  convinced  that  the  first  great  step 
to  security,  will  be  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  election  to 
the  Presidency,  or  of  any  other  democratic  candidate  for  that 
office  that  may  be  named  from  the  Free  States,  who  is  not 
unequivocally  pledged  to  resist  this  Texan  policy. 

But  how  can  this  be  done  ?  A  struggling  scattering  vote 
for  third  persons  will  not  do  it.  And  Mr.  Clay  will  be  the  can- 
didate, in  all  probability,  of  the  opposing  party.  We  are  aware 
of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Clay  is  not  publicly  pledged  on  the  subject 
— that  he  is  himself  a  slave-holder,  tied  to  the  favored  class 
by  common  interests  and  sympathies,  and  that  he  has  in  for- 
mer days  favored  the  acquisition  of  Texas,  when  it  was  an  un- 
occupied territory,  by  lawful  means.  Is  it  to  be  supposed 
that  elevating  him  will  place  us  in  a  better  situation  than  if  we 
sustained  the  democratic  candidate  ? 

We  will  frankly  admit  that  there  are  difficulties  all  round. 
We  have  not  ourselves  been  among  those  who  have  mani- 
fested any  desire  to  support  Mr.  Clay.  Probably  he  himself 
would  not  have  thanked  us  if  we  had  made  the  offer,  and 
w^ould  now  deem  his  prospect  of  success  better  without  such 
support.  But  personal  considerations  weigh  not  with  us  a 
feather,  in  estimating  the  value  of  the  various  modes  now  open 
of  avoiding  the  evils  by  which  we  are  surrounded.  In  the  great 
movements  of  this  world,  which  no  one  can  hope  to  control 
exactly  as  he  would  like,  the  part  of  wise  men  is  to  extract 
from  much  that  appears  unfavorable,  whatever  portion  is  like- 
ly, under  the  circumstances,  to  yield  the  greatest  amount  of 
good.  We  have  seen  no  evidence  to  convince  us  that  what- 
ever may  have  been  Mr.  Clay's  view  of  a  lawful  acquisition 
of  this  territory  formerly,  he  now  approves  of  it  after  the 
conduct  of  government  has  so  complicated  the  question. 
Nor  is  it  alone  the  fact  that  the  Legislatures  of  the  two 
slaveholding  States,  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  friendly  to 
Mr.  Clay,  have  refused  to  favor  the  annexation  of  Texas  at 
this  time  ;  nor  the  fact  that  his  friends,  and  ihe  newspapers 
most  warmly  enlisted  in  his  cause,  are  many  of  them  opposed 
to  it,  which  induces  us  to  overcome  our  scruples,  in  support- 
ing him  for  the  sake  of  defeating  Mr.  Van  Buren.  Very  for- 
tunately for  us,  there  is  another  test  yet  remains  behind, 
which  must  settle  our  opinions  definitively  on  one  side  or  the 
other,  in  this  matter.  A  treaty  on  our  part  with  Texas, 
which  joins  the  two  countries,  without  consulting  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  and  hardly  with  their  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  in  the  process  of  negotiation,  is  at  this 
moment  before  the  Senate  for  confirmation  or  rejection. 
It  is  well  known  that  a  majority  of  that  body  is  of  the  party 


49 

friendly  to  the  election  of  Mr.  Clay  as  President.  If  they 
choose  to  say  the  word,  that  treaty  will  be  declared  to  be 
the  law  of  the  land,  and  the  outrage  will  be  consummated — 
for  after  the  various  indications  of  sentiment  to  which  we 
have  alluded,  we  have  little  faith  in  the  resistance  of  the  dem- 
ocratic part  of  the  body.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  do  not 
say  the  word,  the  treaty  falls  back  upon  its  authors  and  con- 
trivers— a  mere  piece  of  waste  paper. 

"By  those  fruits,  ye  shall  knoio  him." 

If,  as  appears  to  us  most  probable,  that  treaty  should  be 
rejected,  still  it  may  be  done  on  the  ground,  not  of  the  un- 
constitutional character  of  the  act  itself,  but  because  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  have  not  had  any  opportunity  to  ex- 
press an  opinion,  in  favor  of,  or  against  it.  Such  might,  by 
possibility,  be  the  reasoning  of  Mr.  Clay  himself.  We  know 
nothing  of  his  opinions,  and  only  assume  these  to  be  his,  be- 
cause it  is  putting  the  most  unfavorable  view  of  them  that  we 
may  be  called  upon  to  meet.  Although  we  should  more 
highly  value  that  opposition  to  Texas,  which  should  spring 
from  convictions  as  strong  as  our  own  of  the  utter  unconsti- 
tutionality of  the  proposed  act  of  union,  we  ought  not  to  suffer 
ourselves  to  underrate  the  advantages  which  may  be  derived, 
even  from  the  ground  which  is  thus  presented  to  us.  So 
long  as  the  people  of  the  Free  States  are  not  bargained  away 
like  cattle  ;  so  long  as  their  voice  is  to  be  respected  by  those 
in  power,  in  guiding  the  policy  of  the  government,  there  is 
yet  room  for  hope.  The  admission  of  this  principle  alone, 
would  be  a  prognostic  of  a  return  to  brighter  days.  There 
has  been  none  such  acted  upon,  for  a  great  many  years,  by 
those  who  have  been  placed  in  the  administration. 

But  in  order  to  make  this  concession  of  any  avail,  it  will 
be  necessary  for  those  citizens  of  all  parties,  who  value  the 
perpetuity  of  our  pacific  and  free  system  of  government  more 
than  the  success  of  individuals  in  iheir  pursuit  of  office,  to 
direct  their  attention  to  the  choice  of  men  perfectly  true  to  sound 
principles  in  both  branches  of  the  federal  Legislature.  No 
President  will  have  it  in  his  power,  hereafter,  to  do  the  mis- 
chief which  Mr.  Tyler  has  had  an  opportunity  to  do,  if  the 
proper  precautions  be  only  taken.  It  will  be  wise  to  put  re- 
straints on  him,  in  this  particular,  whoever  may  be  the  success- 
ful aspirant.  This  can  be  done.  The  only  question  is,  shall 
it  be  done  ?  We  scarcely  expect  that  the  ultras  of  either  of 
the  three  parties  will  be  prepared  to  abandon  their  standard  for 
any  useful  purpose  whatever,  that  may  conflict  with  the  pro- 
bability of  their  own  ascendency.     But  the  great  mass  of  the 


50 

moderate  and  substantial  people  of  the  community,  who  hold 
the  balance  of  power  between  them,  are  not  so  wedded  to 
any  interest  as  to  be  unwilling  to  hsten  to  reason,  and  of  them 
we  do  expect  all  that  may  yet  be  done  lo  redeem  the  coun- 
try. To  this  end,  it  is  not  absolutely  necessary  that  they 
should  at  once  break  from  the  polhical  association  with  which 
they  ordinarily  act.  Let  them  wait  to  see  who  the  candi- 
dates may  be  that  the  opposite  parties  will  put  up.  If  it  shall 
turn  out  that  they  are  all  not  only  known  to  be  decidedly  op- 
posed to  the  whole  policy  of  annexation  and  war,  but  pos- 
sess sufficient  weight  of  private  character  to  'secure  them 
from  the  suspicion  of  a  liability  to  improper  influence  here- 
after, then  it  is  immaterial  for  which  of  them  any  one  may 
vote,  so  far  as  this  question  is  concerned.  The  election 
of  either  would  secure  the  great  point  now  at  issue.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  candidate  of  only  one  of  the  parties  is 
of  the  character  described,  whilst  that  of  the  other  is  either 
lukewarm  or  wavering,  or  not  to  be  trusted,  then  is  it  the 
bounden  duty  of  every  person  interested  in  the  preservation 
of  our  institutions  in  their  purity,  to  vote  for  the  former,  no 
matter  what  may  be  the  standard  he  is  attached  to.  And 
lastly,  if  the  candidate  presented  by  neither  party  is  deserv- 
ing of  public  trust  at  this  crisis,  then  it  becomes  highly  neces- 
sary to  do,  as  has  lately  been  done,  for  different  reasons,  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  to  rally  upon  some  new  individual, 
whose  character  shall  at  once  challenge  the  confidence  of  the 
voters,  without  regard  to  the  old  forms  of  organization.  In 
this  manner,  and  in  this  only,  can  the  great  point  be  secured, 
of  possessing  a  body  of  men  from  the  Free  States,  who 
will  stand  together  on  this  great  foundation,  no  matter  what 
else  they  may  divide  about.  The  moderate  men,  who  will 
hold  the  balance  of  power  in  almost  every  congressional  dis- 
trict, we  might  even  say  in  almost  every  election  in  the  au- 
tumn, can  secure  this  great  object,  if  they  only  will  it.  But  it 
will  be  necessary  for  them  to  be  on  the  alert.  The  elections 
will  soon  become  a  topic  of  public  interest.  In  order  to  se- 
cure the  right  sort  of  candidates,  it  will  be  necessary  that  the 
requisites  alluded  to  be  early  insisted  upon.  The  field  is  now 
open  for  useful  exertion.  If  it  be  not  rightly  improved,  then 
will  there  be  an  end  of  all  chance  of  future  security.  The 
evil  may  now  have  been  postponed,  but  it  will  not  have  been 
removed.  If  the  Free  States  do  not  strongly  will,  then  the 
inference  will  be  drawn  that  they  consent,  and  many  of  their 
own  citizens  will  be  among  the  first  to  sacrifice  every  public 
principle  to  the  hope  of  personal  advantage  in  promoting  the 
Texas  pohcy. 


61 

* 

For  let  it  be  observed,  that  this  is  not  a  question  for  the 
present  moment  only.  Some  of  the  leading  presses  of  the 
North  have  lately  attempted  to  keep  studiously  out  of  view 
the  subject  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  it  all.  They  appear  to 
think  that  it  is  inexpedient  to  agitate  matters  which  may  affect 
the  position  of  many  Senators  from  the  slave  States,  upon 
whose  cooperation,  to  defeat  the  treaty  now  proposed  to  be 
made,  we  must  rely.  This  argument  would  do  very  well,  if 
the  rejection  of  that  treaty  could  be  regarded  as  a  final  settle- 
ment of  the  question.  But  every  one  knows  that  it  is  not. 
Every  one  knows  that  those  Senators  do  not  mean  to  be  un- 
derstood as  pledging  themselves  beyond  the  occasion.  Every 
one  knows  that  their  policy  is  more  affected  by  their  imme- 
diate interest  in  the  success  of  Mr.  Clay,  which  would  be  en- 
tirely destroyed  by  a  contrary  course,  than  by  any  permanent 
dislike  to  the  Texas  policy  itself.  How  short-sighted  is  it, 
then  to  put  the  argument  against  it  in  the  North  on  a  false 
bottom,  merely  to  please  them,  and  subject  ourselves  to  hav- 
ing the  objection  thrown  into  our  teeth  at  some  future  time, 
that  we  had  acted  hypocritically,  in  suppressing  the  true  rea- 
sons of  our  opposition,  to  serve  a  momentary  purpose.  This 
is  the  sort  of  temporising,  timeserving  policy,  which  too  of- 
ten has  the  effect  of  weakening  the  influence  of  New-England 
in  the  national  councils,  much  more  than  any  extremes  in 
doctrine  which  may  be  advanced.  We  are  accused  of  trick, 
and  management,  and  cunning — underhand  ways  of  gaining 
our  objects.  Would  it  not  be  a  clear  justification  of  such  a 
charge,  to  pretend  that  the  indefinite  expansion  of  slavery  is 
not  the  great  and  leading  objection  in  the  minds  of  all  good 
men  among  us,  to  the  acquisition  of  Texas — provided  that 
this  could  be  done  constitutionally.  Would  not  that  reason 
present  the  chiqf  objection  to  the  adoption  of  an  amendment 
of  the  constitution,  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  it  ?  How 
vain  then  to  imagine,  that  by  a  httle  effort  we  can  hide  it  from 
view.  Does  any  one  suppose  that  if  Mr.  Clay  is  chosen 
President,  he  will  not  be  tried  by  his  enemies  at  the  South  on 
this  delicate  subject,  or  that  those  who  now  support  him  will 
not  be  called  upon  to  assume  their  ground,  immediately  after 
his  election?*  The  present  agitation  of  the  project  will  itself 
be  construed  as  furnishing  some  test  of  the  popular  sentiment 
in  its  favor,  if  that  sentiment  be  not  most  unequivocally  ex- 
pressed against  it.  Does  any  one  imagine,  that  by  a  little  delay 
the  country  will  entirely  avoid  this  issue.''  Would  that  we 
could  beheve  it.  But  we  strain  our  eyes,  and  see  no  such 
blessed  futurity.  The  great  issue  between  the  principles  of 
the  constitution  and  slavery,  between   the  rights  of  the  many 


62 

freemen  and  the  privileges  of  the  few,  must  be  met.  The 
great  problem  of  human  progress  is  involved  in  the  result. 
If  there  are  men  among  us  who  feel  faint-hearted,  or  wish  to 
avert  their  eyes  from  the  prospect,  let  them  stand  aside. 
But  let  them  not  deceive  themselves  with  a  belief,  that  with  a 
few  hollow  phrases  and  delusive  declarations,  they  can  avert 
the  struggle  that  is  impending.  Such  efforts  may  put  it  off 
for  a  few  hours  or  days,  but  they  can  do  no  more. 

How  much  this  struggle  will  be  accelerated,  if  the  treaty 
now  offered  should  be  finally  ratified  by  the  Senate,  we  im- 
agine there  is  no  one  so  cold  as  not  to  comprehend.  Indeed, 
we  have  seen  it  gravely  urged  in  some  quarters,  as  a  serious 
objection  to  it,  not  that  its  principle  is  much  in  its  way, 
but  that  it  would  be  giving  the  abolitionists  too  great  an  ad- 
vantage among  our  citizens.  Such  political  morals  are  too 
common,  even  in  the  best  of  our  newspaper  press,  to  excite 
the  least  surprise.  The  abolitionists  would  long  before  this 
have  made  themselves  an  impregnable  position,  if  they  had 
been  sufficiently  prudent  not  to  connect  with  real  and  solid 
principles  much  that  is  irrelevant  and  impracticable.  Expe- 
rience will,  in  the  course  of  time,  make  them  discreet,  and 
the  violent  course  of  the  Southern  States,  is  daily  con- 
tributing something  to  strengthen  their  arguments.  The  trim- 
ming and  temporizing  system  that  has  marked  the  career 
of  the  race  of  politicians  during  the  last  twenty  years,  will 
no  longer  serve  the  purpose.  The  state  of  the  country  de- 
mands decision,  and  the  pubhc  questions  that  are  about 
to  open  before  it  and  divide  opinion,  are  likely  to  be  of 
such  a  kind  as  to  defy  the  possibility  of  equivocation.  The 
only  difficulty  to  be  guarded  against,  by  those  who  are  driven 
to  contend  against  the  increasing  evils  of  slavery,  is  that 
which  may  arise  from  their  own  errors,  in  choosing  unsafe 
ground  upon  which  to  make  the  contest.  The  best  and 
strongest  cause  may  be  injured,  if  not  destroyed,  by  mistak- 
ing the  true  methods  to  sustain  it. 

This  brings  us  to  the  last  topic,  which  we  proposed  at  the 
outset  to  treat.  In  the  event  of  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
what  is  it  advisable  for  the  free  States  to  do  ?  Are  they  to 
submit  to  it,  as  an  irremediable  evil,  and  patiently  await  the 
results  which  it  may  bring  about,  or  are  they  to  do  as  some 
have  advised — at  once  take  measures  to  produce  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union  ?  In  expressing  our  views  upon  this  subject, 
we  are  conscious  that  we  shall  fall  in  with  the  notions  of  no 
particular  party  ;  for  whilst,  on  the  one  hand,  we  should 
deem  the  time  come  for  an  organization  throughout  the  free 
States,  such  as  has  never  yet  been  made  ;  on  the  other,   we 


53 


should  not  deem  it  come  for  immediate  dissolution.  Not  that 
we  do  not  consider  the  bond  of  the  constitution  completely 
broken  by  the  introduction  of  a  foreign  State,  and  its  obliga- 
tion void.  We  have  not  a  doubt  on  that  point.  But  so  long 
as  we  believe  that  it  is  within  the  power  of  the  free  States  to 
prevent  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  the  war  policy,  if  they 
only  will  it,  just  so  long  shall  we  consider  their  refusal  so  to 
will,  as  implying  the  waiver  of  the  majority,  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  breach  of  contract  at  this  time,  and  their  consent 
to  remain  in  the  Union  for  the  present  on  unequal  terms.  Res- 
olutions and  declamation  are  but  waste  of  time,  if  the  indomita- 
able  spirit  be  not  behind  them  to  give  force  in  action.  The  al- 
ternative is,  then,  to  prepare  for  future  events  ;  to  disseminate 
the  principles  involved  in  the  Massachusetts  resolutions  as 
striking  at  the  root  of  the  evil ;  in  short  to  make  no  cessation  in 
the  contest  against  slavery  and  the  measures  which  flow  from  it. 
Gloomy  though  the  prospect  might  be,  of  fulfilling  the  great 
ends  for  whicTi  the  government  was  constituted,  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity; 
desperate  as  might  seem  the  prospect  of  a  return  to  those 
days  of  honor  and  of  peace,  when  the  name  of  the  republic 
had  not  been  made  a  synonyme  with  rapacity  and  bad  faith  ; 
yet  the  duty  of  good  citizens  would  still  remain  unchanged,  to 
watch  and  to  strive  for  the  best.  Rashness  and  despair  are 
equally  unmanly,  so  long  as  there  is  a  shadow  of  faith  re- 
maining in  the  dispensations  of  an  overruhng  Providence 
above  us. 

We  have  now  done  with  the  subject.  In  treating  it,  we 
are  conscious  that  we  have  occasionally  run  counter  to  the 
prejudices  and  feelings  of  each  of  the  three  parties  which  now 
agitate  the  land.  We  have  been  too  warm  to  suit  those 
whigs,  who  delight  in  indifl^erence  ;  too  uncompromising  to 
suit  the  flexible  morality  of  the  democrats  ;  and  too  cold  to 
suit  those  abolitionists  who  dwell  in  abstractions.  Such  a  re- 
sult almost  inevitably  follows  any  eflbrt  to  express  free 
thoughts  in  a  free  manner.  Yet  in  all  these  parties  there  are, 
numbers  of  persons  who  will  not  be  displeased  if  such  a  lib- 
erty be  taken,  and  who  will  examine  the  argument  that  may 
be  advanced,  with  impartiality,  and  without  reference  to  its 
source.  To  those  persons  we  have  endeavored  most  re- 
spectfully to  address  ourselves.  They  generally  hold  the 
scale  in  political  affairs,  and  although  slow  in  coming  to  the 
formation  of  opinions,  yet  when  once  formed  they  are  tena- 
cious in  maintaining  them.  Let  the  favored  classes  of  the 
South  beware  how,  by  their  violent  career,  they  persist  in  driv- 
ing all  these  people  into  the  doctrines  of  pohtical  abolitionism. 


64 


Thus  far  they  have  looked  on  perhaps  with  too  much  indif- 
ference, at  the  aggressions  committed  time  after  time  upon  the 
principles  of  liberty,  and  have  given  little  encouragement  to 
the  eflbrts  of  agitators.  But  a  persistence  in  sacrificing  the  in- 
terests of  the  whole  to  the  maintenance  of  an  institution  not 
to  be  justified  either  in  the  eyes  of  God  or  man,  a  resolute 
determination  to  press  the  country  into  a  position  before  the 
world,  at  war  both  with  its  declared  principles  and  with  jus- 
tice and  right,  may  try  their  patience  somewhat  beyond  bear- 
ing. And  the  reaction  in  public  opinion,  consequent  upon  the 
outbreak  of  their  indignation,  may  have  effects  upon  the  pol- 
icy of  the  Union  and  the  condition  of  the  slave  States,  which 
would  hardly  be  compensated  to  the  latter  by  the  additional 
security  they  might  fancy  they  had  purchased  to  themselves, 
even  by  success  in  forcing  the  annexation  of  Texas. 


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